Found time to pick up a super nice mep-802a today

[Demoh]

Talked the yardkeeper into letting me come up on a weekend to pick up the gen I bought, except he didnt tell me that he was away and his wife wouldnt be helping me disconnect the trailer from the hmmwv and onto my truck. Luckily this trailer was a whole lot more balanced than the one I picked up last month. My 140lb self was barely able to turn the trailer around by hand. I really wanted to just hop in the hmmwv but I decided against it.

So it was mfg in 2009, initially fired up in 2012. Im still confused on what they do on a level 2 reset at 2.3ish hours, but a document I found seems to shed some light on that subject. Looks like it was uncrated in 2012 with 0 hours on the set then loadbanked and various other tests, ending at 2.3 hours. This one happened to come with all of that paperwork. I dont understand why a 0 hour unit sitting for years that never had an initial test would be getting a new engine and then sent on its way. On almost all of the units rebuilt by letterkenny they are all 2.2 or 2.3 hours and some look rougher than others but they are all lister reman engines. Does the tier 2 reset involve replacing the hour meter and reseting the unit to 0 if its getting a new engine? I skimmed through the reset TM but didnt notice anything like that. I am curious on those resets.

It also came with a whole lot more. full compliment of groundrods w/ ground cable, never opened sledgehammer, slidehammer, what appears to be a slide hammer threaded stop, barrel/jerry can adapter, hoses, CD with TMs on it (nope, whoever burnt the CD dated 2012 put a bunch of shortcuts to the TMs that were on their desktop, some "amanda.p****3"... , thats like trying to use your cell phone to deposit cash....), and the tires still had all the nipples on them (2011 tires). Inside the gen is beautiful, the only rust/corrosion/missing paint is the exhaust manifold as expected and some on the belt pulleys. The engine block still has all of it's green paint. The only bad marks against this unit is sometime after 2012 when the whole unit was carc painted the panel to the fuel tank was removed. This tank wasnt nearly as bad as the 1995 I bought, I just hope it doesnt give me problems like the 1995 either.

Tomorrow it looks like I have my work cut out for me for fluids and related before initial testing even though this is the polar opposite than the 3400 hr unit I picked up that I am still working on.

Since I dont trust that the oil in the crankcase is A) the same break in oil, something doesnt 'feel' right the more auctions I watch when it comes to oil so I think it could be regular oil and not oil with high zinc / other break in additives and B) if it is oil that is 5 years old, I dont trust how broken down the detergents are and what the moisture content is.

That being said I intend on changing the oil. Does anybody know what break-in additive is recommended? I remember reading somebody posted that military started using XXX brand break in oil. I cant find it again does anybody know? Any other break-in oil suggestions? Since the coolant looks good but is unknown Im going to throw some SCA in there for good measure. (all I do is diesels, they all get worked hard and spoiled)

Have a simplex swift-e 10kw load bank that I picked up for $15 because nobody knew what it was that ive been using on generators for years. My 3400 hr 802 takes 6250 watts 30minutes+ no problem, im super curious on how this unit does.

The end goal for this unit is my primary house unit. With inverter drive air conditioner, heat pump water heater, I dont think anybody has ever used the stove, the only real load in the house is the drier. If I need more ill just sync my "beater" 802a in. Last 5 day outage we ran a 5500W screamer hacked together to run propane going through 3 cylinders a day with an old R-22 2.5ton conventional AC and kept the water heater off except when the AC wasnt running. I havent decided between installing an ATS because I have a few laying around or just keeping it manual like Ive been doing. After doing all the maths I foresee me having to split the loads up and doing what I have to do in commercial buildings and going with a critical panel and normal panel where only critical is generator. (that way my 3 phase that runs through a idler motor to generate the 3rd leg CNC mill doesnt get generator power but my webservers do. )

Ill keep the 3400 hr unit as a backup to my backup, sync them if I need more juice, and to tinker with.

 

[Daybreak]

Howdy,

Military MEP generator reset information

MEP-802/803 Filters and Parts the 2nd post has quick links to lots of stuff.

Break-In oil for the low hour MEPS

The TQG 10kw and smaller do not sync and run in parallel. Because of the manual adjustments, it would be out of balance. 15kw and larger have parallel ability. All the new AMMPS set of parallel ability 5kw-60kw built in.
Generators in Parallel Operation

Acquired a Military surplus load bank

Yes, the oil breaks down after being hot, cold, sitting, condensation etc... The depot uses John Deere Break-In Oil.

Unit looks good. Use the load bank for a good break-in. Anytime I ran my 10 hour and 14 hour unit, I would run it on the load bank for at least 4-5 hours at a whack. 80%-100% load.

 

[Captaincarrier]

Looks good....

 

[Demoh]

Ahh it was deere oil which I couldnt remember.... so does that mean I need to put a jager sticker on this thing? Great, I wont hear the end about it from my brother if he sees a deere product in my hands (he owns a deere, hates it, tractor has epa emission bs on it)

As for syncing, I am aware, Ive been in the presence of a mentor who syncs older as dirt generators and have been picking his brain a lot lately. If I am to sync I do not intend on doing any form of automatic anything. At the state I am in with electrical stuff nothing I do is automatic. Maybe in 20 years ill want something turnkey.

Looks like Ive already read through a lot of your pages as all of those look familiar, I guess I should have bookmarked it... in reality there is just a LOT to read. Theres probably more about these things than every off the wall problem ive worked on in a 7.3


Bah, living in the city certainly has its disadvantages... no readily available deere parts... Everglades is closed tomorrow so it looks like Ill wait until the week to get my oil...

Looks good....

Hello neighbor.... Didnt expect seeing another person in pinellas county so quickly after becoming active instead of lurking...

 

[Chrispyny]

Congrats on a sweet machine. All you have to do now is.... get to painting!

I’m not a fan of desert sand, but the genset is seriously sweet. I just gave my 802 a quarterly load test yesterday. I’d like to tweek the droop juuust a bit, but it performed flawlessly. Enjoy.

 

[Demoh]

Yea Im not too crazy about the color, give me the green that is on the inside...


Now some coolant questions. I was going to throw some DCA2 SCA (napakool) in and test the SCA levels, but then I started thinking. Why wouldnt I just remove all of the silicate based green coolant and install a nice Shell or CAT ELC coolant? Ive been running that stuff in every diesel and even the gassers for a very long time without a single cooling system related failure. Whenever I do a changeover I end up overhauling the entire cooling system, WP, hoses, tstat, oil cooler, heater core, reservoir, etc... One of my first ones has had 5-6 years and 70k on this coolant and everything still looks new except the plastic has yellowed. Not a single drop has been added to the system over the years and this particular 7.3 is ridden hard. These coolants are meant to maintain their cavitation protection abilities for up to 600k miles / 12k hours and can be renewed once to add another 300k miles / 6k hours whereas a green coolant with an SCA depending on use can deplete it's SCA in 1-3 years. I work with engines where I actually get to see cavitation due to improper coolant so I take special care to prevent it. For gasoline engines we dont proactively convert them but if there is a failure that results in coolant loss we go ahead and do the overhaul with an ELC after the proper flush. So far in every vehicle / piece of equipment the reasons for junking have never been cooling / heat / lubrication related.

The problem with an OAT based ELC is incompatibility with other coolants, and sometimes there is an incompatibility with the engine. In the case of a 7.3 it is the locktite that holds the injector cups in before some date in 1999. Does anybody know of some such incompatibilities with these 802/803 engines? I figure the military would use the most common and most forgiving coolant available for logistics and field serviceability, and totally expect these generators to be annexed before cavitation even becomes an issue they have to deal with.

I know the WPs will last longer having a silicate free coolant. On GP I see units going up that have red coolant. I think it should be fine just like all of the other units Ive converted, does anybody have any input on running a medium/heavy duty ELC coolant in these things?

 

[csheath]

Yea Im not too crazy about the color, give me the green that is on the inside...


Now some coolant questions. I was going to throw some DCA2 SCA (napakool) in and test the SCA levels, but then I started thinking. Why wouldnt I just remove all of the silicate based green coolant and install a nice Shell or CAT ELC coolant? Ive been running that stuff in every diesel and even the gassers for a very long time without a single cooling system related failure. Whenever I do a changeover I end up overhauling the entire cooling system, WP, hoses, tstat, oil cooler, heater core, reservoir, etc... One of my first ones has had 5-6 years and 70k on this coolant and everything still looks new except the plastic has yellowed. Not a single drop has been added to the system over the years and this particular 7.3 is ridden hard. These coolants are meant to maintain their cavitation protection abilities for up to 600k miles / 12k hours and can be renewed once to add another 300k miles / 6k hours whereas a green coolant with an SCA depending on use can deplete it's SCA in 1-3 years. I work with engines where I actually get to see cavitation due to improper coolant so I take special care to prevent it. For gasoline engines we dont proactively convert them but if there is a failure that results in coolant loss we go ahead and do the overhaul with an ELC after the proper flush. So far in every vehicle / piece of equipment the reasons for junking have never been cooling / heat / lubrication related.

The problem with an OAT based ELC is incompatibility with other coolants, and sometimes there is an incompatibility with the engine. In the case of a 7.3 it is the locktite that holds the injector cups in before some date in 1999. Does anybody know of some such incompatibilities with these 802/803 engines? I figure the military would use the most common and most forgiving coolant available for logistics and field serviceability, and totally expect these generators to be annexed before cavitation even becomes an issue they have to deal with.

I know the WPs will last longer having a silicate free coolant. On GP I see units going up that have red coolant. I think it should be fine just like all of the other units Ive converted, does anybody have any input on running a medium/heavy duty ELC coolant in these things?

Not sure how deep into that you want to get but the operator's manual states water and MIL-A-46153, 1to1.

Attached is the spec for MIL-A-46153C.

 

[Demoh]

Not sure how deep into that you want to get but the operator's manual states water and MIL-A-46153, 1to1.

Attached is the spec for MIL-A-46153C.

Interesting, no mentioning of cavitation or the chemicals that are normally used to combat cavitation, ie: nitrite, molybdate/nitrate, etc... A quick breeze through that I didnt recognize any of the other chemicals as being related to cavitation.

Well since everything in the military is disposable and we purchase these things to NOT be disposable, it only make sense to combat the long term longevity issues that the military doesnt worry about.

 

[Guyfang]

Partner, the best part of the deal is the SwiftE load bank!! Oh man, are they nice. I had one I picked up from someone who was closing down a small Air Defence Site. I was all over it! Sadly, some rat stole it from the back end of my car. That's all he took.

The army just dosnt get into explains things to the soldiers that they don't need to know. Like what's in the coolest. There is a NSN, order that coolest, done. So no help from the TM's.

 

[Demoh]

Partner, the best part of the deal is the SwiftE load bank!! Oh man, are they nice. I had one I picked up from someone who was closing down a small Air Defence Site. I was all over it! Sadly, some rat stole it from the back end of my car. That's all he took.
The army just dosnt get into explains things to the soldiers that they don't need to know. Like what's in the coolest. There is a NSN, order that coolest, done. So no help from the TM's.

Sucks about the load bank. Ive had this since before I got into generators (ive been in gens for 3-4 years, military gens im brand new to), it was an onsite equipment auction and the auctioneer said "this here heater lets start the bidding at 50"... nobody took it, I held up 1 finger and nobody opposed me so I got it for $10 plus fees and tax. Mind you this was the middle of summer in florida so nobody wanted a heater.... I have a good auction face but it was hard to contain my excitement.

Understandable about the need to know stuff in the TMs so I can see why they wouldnt mention it. But unless I am wrong the chemical makeup of the antifreeze for that spec doesnt have any anti-cavitation agents....

 

[eatont9999]

Yea Im not too crazy about the color, give me the green that is on the inside...


Now some coolant questions. I was going to throw some DCA2 SCA (napakool) in and test the SCA levels, but then I started thinking. Why wouldnt I just remove all of the silicate based green coolant and install a nice Shell or CAT ELC coolant? Ive been running that stuff in every diesel and even the gassers for a very long time without a single cooling system related failure. Whenever I do a changeover I end up overhauling the entire cooling system, WP, hoses, tstat, oil cooler, heater core, reservoir, etc... One of my first ones has had 5-6 years and 70k on this coolant and everything still looks new except the plastic has yellowed. Not a single drop has been added to the system over the years and this particular 7.3 is ridden hard. These coolants are meant to maintain their cavitation protection abilities for up to 600k miles / 12k hours and can be renewed once to add another 300k miles / 6k hours whereas a green coolant with an SCA depending on use can deplete it's SCA in 1-3 years. I work with engines where I actually get to see cavitation due to improper coolant so I take special care to prevent it. For gasoline engines we dont proactively convert them but if there is a failure that results in coolant loss we go ahead and do the overhaul with an ELC after the proper flush. So far in every vehicle / piece of equipment the reasons for junking have never been cooling / heat / lubrication related.

The problem with an OAT based ELC is incompatibility with other coolants, and sometimes there is an incompatibility with the engine. In the case of a 7.3 it is the locktite that holds the injector cups in before some date in 1999. Does anybody know of some such incompatibilities with these 802/803 engines? I figure the military would use the most common and most forgiving coolant available for logistics and field serviceability, and totally expect these generators to be annexed before cavitation even becomes an issue they have to deal with.

I know the WPs will last longer having a silicate free coolant. On GP I see units going up that have red coolant. I think it should be fine just like all of the other units Ive converted, does anybody have any input on running a medium/heavy duty ELC coolant in these things?

I know exactly what you are talking about when it comes to SCAs and 7.3L engines. I have a 7.3 IDI. I asked the same question here a while back and the consensus was no, you do not need to use anti-cavitation additives in the coolant. I use the generic green stuff mixed with 50% distilled water. I never use SCA charged coolant in anything that does not call for it. The reason is because it can react with other coolants and clog the cooling system. My intention is to avoid confusion and damage if someone were to top off the coolant. Gas powered engines should not need SCAs because they do not have the compression ratio that causes cavitation.

If you want to test your coolant, you can buy SCA test strips at Napa. You are almost guaranteed to find no SCAs in the military coolant.

 

[Demoh]

If you want to test your coolant, you can buy SCA test strips at Napa. You are almost guaranteed to find no SCAs in the military coolant.

I would but I give the NAPAs around here a run for their money. NAPA was my first stop when I got back into town yesterday. They didnt have any test strips, only showed 1 bottle of NAPAKOOL which they had the whole store looking for (5 people, it was a slow day and all deliveries were done) and couldnt find it. They said that that productline was discontinued and their warehouses show a zero reorder quantity effective last year and they are burning stock. Of course this is coming from the manager there after I wouldnt accept help from somebody who didnt know what I was talking about.

This happens to be the same napa I went in to get some truck valve stems. They had 2. I straight up asked the manager "So NAPA specializes in trucks right? ...Yes.... Then why do you only stock 2 valve stems, I dont know any medium or heavy duty truck that only has 2 wheels...." The entire store was speechless, I think the other customer's jaws hit the floor as hard as the employees....

I think NAPA is falling just like many other companies to a consumable society. And the people employed by these companies are no exception. They have enough knowledge to be dangerous but really have no knowledge as to why things are or how things work. If I dont know how things work I fail until I figure it out. Thats why I bought a non-running 3400 hr gen AND a nice one. Ill learn everything there is to learn from the beater gen, blow it up, run it on WMO, benchmark it, gather a crapton of data in enough spreadsheets to make an accountant's eyes bleed and then that should protect this very nice unit from being destroyed by me. (I have a pretty good track record though, most "experiments" end up running great afterwards.)

 

[Demoh]

I know exactly what you are talking about when it comes to SCAs and 7.3L engines. I have a 7.3 IDI. I asked the same question here a while back and the consensus was no, you do not need to use anti-cavitation additives in the coolant. I use the generic green stuff mixed with 50% distilled water. I never use SCA charged coolant in anything that does not call for it. The reason is because it can react with other coolants and clog the cooling system. My intention is to avoid confusion and damage if someone were to top off the coolant. Gas powered engines should not need SCAs because they do not have the compression ratio that causes cavitation.

Ok thanks. I never have a topoff problem because I am pretty well stocked on those types of supplies and my business partner runs an auto shop too. It does get me thinking twice that I should probably stick with the standard green and add an SCA for the whole disaster preparedness part. I mean, just because I have supplies doesnt mean they wont be depleted in a hurricane or other disaster.

Irma is a perfect example. for generators I wasnt prepared. I had 3 non-runner screamers and no tools to rebuild the carbs. I also had more propane than gasoline. as the hurricane was hammering (like 4 hours before eye) I moved my propane conversion from my dead lawnmower over to 1 generator and got 1 carb cleaned out enough to run under 60% choke. Meaning I should probably stick with the green because if something happens I could always get green coolant a whole lot easier than any ELC. Mixing an OAT with a conventional IAT normally ends in jello. Even though under normal circumstances I would be the only person maintaining these units, in a disaster all of that may go out the window.

Good angle to think about now.

 

[eatont9999]

I don't have much experience with Napa but I have heard they used to be the place to go. We just don't have that many of them where I live. I have been using a coolant called Fleet Charge in my 7.3 for over 6 years and it has not given me any problems. It is pre-charged with SCA and can be recharged with Ford's SCA if needed. It is made for semi trucks. I usually have no problem fining it at O'Reilly Auto. The part number is FLEET. They keep it behind the register.

 

[FloridaAKM]

That unit looks like the one that I was bidding on out of Lake Butler. If it is, glad it went to a good home.

 

[Demoh]

That unit looks like the one that I was bidding on out of Lake Butler. If it is, glad it went to a good home.

Sure is, which week though, there were 2. I got the one from the first week, the one for the 2nd week went for a lot more.

 

[FloridaAKM]

I didn't see the first weeks offering, but the second week was the one I was bidding on. It went way above what I would offer for it, we both know what, so I will leave it @ that.

 

[Demoh]

Decided to finally fire the unit up and change out the unknown condition break in oil with deere break in oil. The original oil looked great in every way but didnt know if it sat for 5 years or was changed for the auction video. Ran the gen for 2 hours at various loads after nice warmup period. Leveled off at 4kw for this run with some exploring higher peaks in short bursts.

One item that I did notice was how the oil pressure evolved over time. First startup ever for this unit in my possession was 60psi and remained 60 psi when it reached operating temp. after some time it was 59.5 ish, just a hair below 60. After the oil change the unit was back to 60 and remained that way some time after fully warmed up. Over the course of 1.5 more hours the pressure gradually worked its way to about 58psi. Temp and other gauges remained constant.

I dont expect this unit to keep 60psi throughout it's life, and I am wondering if 55-60 psi is bad. I remember reading these units like a minimum of 35 and the pressure bleed is 45-59 or something to that effect. As for what I think I am seeing is the properties of the oil changing. I didnt get a long enough of a run like I wanted due to it was getting late but now I can start at a fresh 5.0 hours on my next fire up.

So does anybody have a good break in procedure for these? Like 50% for the first 10 hours, 75% for the next 10, 100% for next 10, then x then y etc... Or are there just certain parameters like just run it and keep it between 50% and 120%, or stay away from over 100% for the first x hours, etc...

I know like tractors they should be worked but not abused for the break in. Well I am curious to what the best definition of worked but not abused is.

 

[Daybreak]

Howdy,
A generator engine is designed for 1 thing. Move along at 1800rpm. A tractor engine is variable rpm's.

A broke in 2 MEP-802A units, one with 10 hours and another with 14 hours. Loaded them up around 70-100% at 4-5 hours at a whack. Sometimes bumped up into 125% shortly, and back down to like 90% most of the time. The Onan DN2M/LPW2 (2 cylinder) and DN4M/LPW4 (4 cylinder) are 25 year old designs. Sloppy precision. The injectors do not moderate. A good hard loading will always be best. Keep a eye on your oil level too during the break-in process. After a good 5 hour run, make sure to top it off.

The depot reset information states they run it for around 2.3 hours at different loads for quality control.

Military MEP generator reset information is a good read. The info is in there. Regarding the test running which they do.

I did the same thing with the oil on both units. a 2007 with 14 hours, and a 2009 with 10 hours. Factory oil and filter still on them. all original. The oil breaks down after heat, cold, condensation etc.. I drained both and used the Deere break-in oil, and all new filters. (oil, fuel cartridge, spin-on fuel/water) and drained and cleaned the fuel tank before attempting to run it.

 

[Demoh]

I understand the difference, but my OCD always gets to me. Kind of like if you have 2x million mile semis driven by different people and they run great for those people. If they end up swapping rigs they end up becoming trash because the habits of 1 driver are now getting worn into the other semi, where they might not have been able to take that much abuse whereas the wear from the original drive is a walk in the park because its been conditioned for that for all its life.

Any vehicle I get I normally know the full history on because I am close to who I purchase from. There are normally many issues that first year but normally if the vehicle lasts that first year it will normally last until something catastrophic. whenever something goes with these vehicles I get a "that wouldnt have happened if I still had the vehicle because I dont do X to it"... I can also see the reverse where problems stop because the original owner had a habit that vehicle didnt like and it stopped when I started driving it.

It is this logic which I am trying to apply to this generator. Maybe this logic doesnt apply because really it boils down to how much pressure is put on the rings to seat them, i dont know.

Im probably crazy tho and thats fine by me.