Home » Public Forums » GMCnet » Onan Adventures (Swaping out Onans)
| Onan Adventures [message #318374] |
Fri, 02 June 2017 12:33  |
Carl S.
Messages: 4186
Registered: January 2009
Location: Tucson, AZ.
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Senior Member |
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About a year ago, Steve Ferguson put out a notice on Facebook that he had a 6KW power drawer that had been completely reconditioned by an Onan dealer, that he wanted to get out of his garage. He explained that the generator came from Kerry Tandy's coach after he had been having trouble with it, and had it replaced with a new one. Kerry, so the story goes, then pointed to the removed Onan and told them to "make that one like new" I got too good of a deal on it to pass it up.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided it was time to do the swap, and drug the 'new' generator out of my garage for a test run. The night before, I had pulled the spark plugs and sprayed a healthy dose of Sta-Bil Cylinder Fogger into the spark plug holes. Saturday morning, I rigged up a gas can, and after correcting a mis-wired fuel pump, hooked it up to the coach batteries with jumper cables, and fired it up. It started almost immediately and upon checking it out, I found that is was producing a nice steady 120 volts of AC power.
I then set about removing the old Onan, using an engine hoist, and although not an easy task, had it out in a few hours. I then worked on some peripheral stuff (rebuilt the macerator, removed the batteries and Ragusa Battery tray, etc. and started re-lining the generator compartment with some two pound foam/sound deadening insulation I had gotten from Jim Bounds. I finished that all up during the evenings of the next week and was ready to stab the new generator into the hole on Memorial Day weekend.
I had it all ready to go in when my son arrived to help at about noon, and after removing a few more parts (the battery cable and fuel connection on the bottom of the drawer) we had it bolted in. We then wired in the 12 volt starting cables and the 120 volt AC connections and tried to fire it up. it would turn over very slowly, but not start. After checking the voltage draw on the starter, we decided there was something wrong with it and pulled it off. The starter had evidently been wet and the brushes were rusted into the brush holder , so we put the starter from the old generator on it. It then started okay, but still turned over somewhat slowly.
After checking the voltage and making a few small adjustments, I turned on both air conditioners. It handled them just fine, even after the compressors kicked in. I then loaded it up with the water heater, and although we could tell there was a load on it, it handled that as well (something that my old high hour unit could not do). The voltage and hertz never changed appreciably from the unloaded condition.
I worked on it some more on Sunday trying to wire in the remote panel. Covered under another thread, we had to make a few wiring corrections to the control board and trace the wiring to the remote switch, but finally got it.
Next issue was the starter. Although the old Onan's starter was adequate to crank the tired old engine, it lacked the poewer to turn the new one over at enough speed to start it. I took the water damaged starter to a local re-builder (sorry Jim K, the shipping would have killed me) and they turned it into a work of art for $88.18. I thought 'if this thing works as well as it looks, it should start it with no problem'. I installed the rebuilt starter and hit the switch and the generator fired off immediately on the first stroke.
I'm still working on a few details, which I hope to have finished up this weekend, but overall I am very pleased with the swap. Here's hoping it works out well in the long run.
I guess the cost of a full recondition of this Onan wasn't a factor for Kerry, but I've often wondered why we don't see more of that going on. Are the parts prohibitively expensive or just not available? The Power Drawer was specifically designed for the GMC and is therefore a perfect fit, so it made sense to me, to stick with it. Besides, a new one costs ~$3500.00.
My old Onan, although a high hour machine (probably 0ver 3,000 hours, the Hobbs meter was broken when I got the coach) has always been dependable with the only issues, ever, being fuel pump problems. It will be for sale if anyone needs one.
Carl Stouffer
'75 ex Palm Beach
Tucson, AZ.
Chuck Aulgur Reaction Arm Disc Brakes, Quadrabags, 3.70 LSD final drive, Lenzi knuckles/hubs, Dodge Truck 16" X 8" front wheels, Rear American Eagles, Solar battery charging. GMCSJ and GMCMI member
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