Servicing the generator

[Dennis]

I would appreciate your knowledge and experience as far as how often to service the generator. Some people have advised me to change the oil and the oil filter every 100 to 200 hours; I have also heard every 50 hours which seems much to short a period of time.

Thanks for sharing.

Dennis

[Randy Dupree]

i have run my gennie for 14 days non-stop before,i serviced it before and after.
thats 336 hours.
i think changing the oil every 100 hours is a waste of good oil,i change it before every long trip.

[BCRoamer]

I agree with Randy, given the quality of oils and filters I change mine about every 200 hours or more depending where'm at in my travels.

I have a friend that has a rental business, one of his products is Bobcats with Kubota engines and he tells me there's just no way to kill them. You should hear some of the horror stories about how folks treat rental units.

I do change filters every time I change oil.

[BCRoamer]

I should have added that some of my timeline for change depends on how hard the genset has been used. If I'm running all 3 A/C's and pulling lots of kwh then I'll change sooner.

[rwoody]

mine is just like my john deere

150 hr rotella! and all filters!

[iamflagman]

Originally Posted by Randy Dupree

i have run my gennie for 14 days non-stop before,i serviced it before and after.
thats 336 hours.
i think changing the oil every 100 hours is a waste of good oil,i change it before every long trip.

I agree with Randy, but then I have a Perkins that was serviced religiously by Budweiser when they originally owned the 'Bird and used the h*#l out of it back when they owned it up until the late 90's. Now it has over 8,000 hours on it and has some oil leaks that look worse than they really are, so I have to use a dog bed diaper under it to keep the oil from accumulating in the tray under the Perkins and running on the ground, it's amazing how a little oil will make such a big mess.

The past three years I have taken extended vacations sometimes up to three months during the summer, which means I ran the generator as much as the main engine, if not more to run the roof airconditioners and I only changed the oil and filters before each trip. This year it has been sitting at races for three and four days at a time running constantly , so it is due for a change now, thanks for bringing up the topic to remind me to look at my to do list again.

Here is something that I have added to mine to aid in changing the oil

http://www.pbase.com/iamflagman/image/53907070

[Dennis]

Thank you all for your good sounding advice.

Dennis