The Forestry Forum

For the last week our beloved generator is acting up. No error messages at the generator status. No error messages from the Outback system except the AC feed failed.

I caught it today. At startup there was something like backfire incidents as the generator warmed. Then under load when it dies, it dies immediately. Hi/Low, it doesn't matter. It's like shutting the key off.

Any ideas? Gosh I love the efficiency. But I also love point/condenser/carburetor of older stuff.

When you're good, your good. When not, dang.

It's that time of year. I am having the same trouble with my Eu3000i. It's problem is condensation (water) in the gas. It will start and then run rough and then die. I drain the carb and it will go again. There are traces of water in the draining's. I am in the process of draining and cleaning the carb sediment bowl and fuel tank.

For years I ran my generator every day and never had problems but now it is seldom run and accumulates condensation in the gas tank. It's a real pain to clean the gas tank and now mine is rusty in the bottom. 

Have you tried using Sta-Bil in your fuel? Since I switched to that 4 years ago I have not had a single problem with a single small engine regardless of how long it sits. Sonblower, generator, whatever, it sits for 6-12 months and starts right up, every time. Maybe I am just lucky. Non-ethanol and sta-bil in ALL my stuff now. I haven't had to clean a carb in years now. (Maybe I should put that in print lest it bite me in the butt. ;D).

My generator hasn't been idle this summer so its not condensation from old or stale fuel. My battery bank for the solar needs a new set of batteries and its hard to find a dealer for 8 L16 Trojans with a matching production run numbers. Per the dealer, even if he could find them they would be much more expensive - another complexity on the supply chain right now. Since the batteries can't carry us through the night, the generator runs every morning.

Anyway, I may have found the problem or at least an indicator of the problem. There is a spark arrestor at the outlet and the manual says to clean both screens. When the arrestor tip is removed ya can see two screens in it and as before, both were clean. This time I discovered that there is a separate conical screen about 3.5" long the extends into the muffler. Duh - you wouldn't know this is the second screen unless you stick your finger into the outlet. It has much finer screen and was mostly coated with soot. Since this unit is fuel injected I'm sure it caused all kinds of weirdness with the oxygen sensor if not just the back pressure. This AM, it failed a run and shut down as it had before. But it ran fine when I plugged the power cord back into it  ;D

Thx for the input!