- This topic has 4 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 12 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
We just spent a weekend in Breaux Bridge, La. We met up with some friends from Baton Rouge area who got us started on our journey of owning our own camper. I sometimes don’t know whether to thank them or curse them… LoL
Anyway… We were supposed to go up near Dallas for a fair, dry camping. This would be the first time for that adventure but due to the recent bad weather in Texas the fair was canceled. I still wanted to go somewhere a give our “new to us” camper a shake-down before the 2 big trips this fall, even if it was just in the backyard.
The day before departure (we were heading to http://www.pochesrvpark.com/home/ which has full hook-ups so no generator needed. I decided to disconnect from the house a day early and let the generator run the A/C, fridge, etc… It would give me a short run and if all went well I would feel confident for the fall trips.
Well, Murphy must’ve over heard my plans… The generator ran for about 20 minutes with no problems and just shut down. My first thought was a fuel problem – did the previous owners change the fuel filters? What about the fuel pump (a friend had recently had fuel pump problems). I looked up the parts and saw they were cheap (for anything that says “RV” on it) and planned to check it deeper after our trip. My friend (Bear)knew someone who worked on generators and we planned to get both his and mine serviced, we could meet at Bear’s house and get both worked on at the same time… Good plan, sounds great.
I get home last night and look around on YouTube and find this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U72Zmk0BF-o PERFECT!! I can do that, I used to be a bit of a grease monkey.
I go out & prime the fuel, hit the start button and viola! it cranks and run for a few seconds… repeat, same result – except this time I see the magic smoke escape from the control module. Not just smoke, a small jet of flame also… like a very tiny bottle rocket. (There was no danger of fire, the module is not near flammables.)
I don’t know if there’s anyone here who worked on Fords in the mid 70s thru the early 80s and remembers the ignition control modules. This is very similar, the way you knew you had a bad one was the silicone covering the circuit board was bubbled and burnt.
I found a replacement here: http://www.partsfortechs.com/asapcart/new-replacement-for-cummins-onan-3271413-and-3005046-p-1384.html
There may be others available out there, it doesn’t appear Onan still sells them – at least not online. This one looks to be aftermarket updated. It should be here in a couple of days, along with a new air & fuel filter AND a new fuel pump. I guess I may as well replace it all, the module is a $350 part why skip the other $50 while I’m in there working on it anyway…
Get ‘er done! New fuel & air filter, new fuel pump, and new control module in and generator is running. I’m gonna let it run for a couple of hours with the A/C running.
Very interesting job. Not difficult, but a little challenging due to the small space you have to work in. AND throw in another rain delay AFTER taking it apart.
Disconnected the battery under the hood, forgot completely about the storage batteries… one sparky incident later & got that taken care of. 😉
I followed the steps in the video and dis-assembly went smoothly. Fuel pump is in the back (of course) and I’m glad I went ahead and changed it. Lot’s of corrosion on the fittings – it looked like it had never been changed.
The module was interesting, it mounted to the bracket you have to remove first, slides in and then 1 bolt. The starter solenoid (for the generator) mounts to the same bracket and all together is a tight fit going back in.
Anyway, $400 and a couple of hours saved me a trip to the generator shop. Who knows what that would of cost – but I bet it has 4 numbers in the price.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.