MEP-803A overheat - newer issue

[frank8003]

If a coolant hose had a no squashing spring in it when new then it MUST be in there forever.

 

[Guyfang]

I appears that I post about every 6 months or so, after I have been to my place in the islands and had to fight with the generator. This time is no different.

Finally got back to the islands over the past weekend. Ran the generator for a bit without a load and put in some radiator flush. After about 2 hours of running without a load, I drained and flushed the radiator getting a lot of black liquid out. I then filled the radiator back up and started it up with a load. After running about 10 minutes with a load of 18.6 amps on line 1 and 19.4 amps in line 3, the generator over heated and shut down. (Did you run the gen set at this high a load before you started this whole rodeo, and it ran without over heating?) Thankfully we had "normal power" with no issued on this trip and didn't have to rely on the generator.

Here is what I found while checking things -
1. half of radiator fan shroud is missing (What part of the fan shroud, and have you replaced it?) (but it has been missing since I bought it and I have not had these issues in the past really.)
2. Both of the radiator hoses feel "crunchy" when I squeeze them. They are not soft and pliable.
3. fan spins with the water pump and no damage to the fins.

confirming there is not an internal impeller in the water pump?

Followed the following from the manual -
1. amps don't appear to be more than capacity
2. coolant level is full
3. pretty sure oil level is good but I didn't think to check it
4. didn't check the air intake
5. fan belt is tight



Any suggestions? We hope to be back at the end of December.

Open to see comments.

 

[k9medic]

Open to see comments.

Yes to all. I just put a new water pump on it this week. Now I have a new issue - the unit bogs down under load and dies. No warning lights or anything. Prime pump still ticking away... I replaced the fuel filters recently (when I had the over heat issue) and now wonder if I also have a clogged injector.

Looking at the -10 and the other manuals there are some trouble shooting sections that I have worked through and they seem to point towards a bad injector or a bad governor.

 

[Ray70]

Although your fuel pump is clicking away, your description is a classic sign of a failing fuel pump. Just because they make noise doesn't mean they are good. It just happened to me ( again ) recently. Machine was running great one day, next day my buyer arrived and the machine would bog at anything over 30% load.
Turned out the primary pump was going bad. Swapped it out and machine ran like a champ and the buyer took the machine home with no further problems.
Those machines need a bit of pressure for the metering pumps to operate. Having "fuel" at the metering pumps is not enough, you need 5+ PSI just to keep it running, more when under load.

 

[k9medic]

Although your fuel pump is clicking away, your description is a classic sign of a failing fuel pump. Just because they make noise doesn't mean they are good. It just happened to me ( again ) recently. Machine was running great one day, next day my buyer arrived and the machine would bog at anything over 30% load.
Turned out the primary pump was going bad. Swapped it out and machine ran like a champ and the buyer took the machine home with no further problems.
Those machines need a bit of pressure for the metering pumps to operate. Having "fuel" at the metering pumps is not enough, you need 5+ PSI just to keep it running, more when under load.

I think you are 100% correct here. Yesterday I tried an experiment.... Remember, I am working on an island so I have limited resources.

I have a 30 gallon barrel that I was using as a auxiliary fuel tank. It was plumbed directly into the primary fuel pump since the aux adapter and aux fuel pump are inop. It previously ran great like this but recent started to have the bog down/ die issues that I described.

I pulled this line off of the barrel side and ran it into a 5 gallon container. It ran perfect for about 3 hours pulling around 20 amps according to my meter. I then reconnected the primary fuel tank to the primary fuel pump. It ran for another hour with no issues right up until I tried to take a shower. After a few minutes, the generator died so I turned off the water heater and it went back to running fine. As luck would have it, that is when we lost "shore power" so I restarted the generator. A little later in the evening we tried to cook and it did the same thing so I pulled the line back off and put it back in the 5 gallon container.

At 2100 power came back on and then again at around 0100 we lost "shore power." I started the generator back up and it ran just fine powering the 3 mini split AC's.

As of the writing, we are now running back on the generator. I reconnected the fuel line back to the internal tank and we tried to turn on the stove. The generator lugged back down.

Here is my million dollar question - what type of PSI and flow should I have to be able to run off the 30 gallon barrel again? I think I can source a local fuel pump in Marsh Harbour but it will be a generic one. Can I put it in line with the fuel hose prior to the currently installed one to "boost" the pressure?

I appreciate everybody's input!

 

[Scoobyshep]

Apples to oranges here, but I had a 004 doing the same thing, TLDR bottom of radiator was clogged.

 

[Ray70]

Any universal diesel rated fuel pump with like 6-14 PSI will work fine.
Don't need a real lot of flow since burn rate is very low, but typical pumps would be about 35 gph at freeflow.
For reference I have used airtex E8135 many times with perfect results.

 

[k9medic]

Thank you for the info.

I want to make sure that the pump has enough lifting ability to be able to draw fuel from the tank. The inlet for the tank is at the top with a pipe going to the bottom to draw from.

Thankfully, the water pump replacement appears to have solved my overheating issue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[k9medic]

Thank you for the info.

I want to make sure that the pump has enough lifting ability to be able to draw fuel from the tank. The inlet for the tank is at the top with a pipe going to the bottom to draw from.

Thankfully, the water pump replacement appears to have solved my overheating issue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk