Opinions on MEP-831A

[calsdad]

Thanks Kloppk.

There's some auctions coming up starting tomorrow on govliquidation, I'm going to follow those and see what they go for. The stuff that I've been following on govplanet is going for over $1k. Seems like only the gens with hundreds of hours on them go for under $1k

 

[Guyfang]

I'm seriously thinking of picking up a MEP-831a to replace the little Honda EU2000 I've been using. I already stock 10's of gallons of diesel fuel for my tractor and the indirect heater I use to keep the barn warm , so I figure it makes sense from the fuel perspective to just add another diesel engine'd appliace rather than go the gasoline route on the genset.

I've been looking at auctions on govliquidation and govplanet , I can find closed auctions on govplanet so I get a good idea of what these are finally going for $$wise , but I can't seem to figure out how to view ended auctions on govliquidation.

There's a bunch of MEP-831a's coming up for auction on govliquidation that only read 2 hours on the meter - and I looked at the pics - and the meters all look to be new (Honeywell meters instead of the Hobbs meters that these all seemed to be built with).

I noticed in the pics that all of these 2 hour units seem to have a yellow tag hanging from the engine. Would I be correct to assume that these 2 hour units were all factory reset? The govliquidation auctions don't have a lot of description or very good pics compared to the govplanet auctions, so it's hard to figure out what the exact condition is of these units.

What's a good price to pay for one of these? I've seen a few going what seems like crazy money. Typical selling price on places like Ebay is up in the $2k range.

There is no such thing as "factory reset". A reset is performed by contracted civilians or a government run shop. The yellow tag be many things. Sometimes it's to let you know there are no fluids in the engine. Sometimes that the engine is prepared for long term storage. Sometimes it's to tell you that the engine has new fluids, and the date that they were installed. Do not assume anything. Best to look. Or ask.

 

[jwinner]

I rolled the dice with the last GL auction and now have two working mep-831s and one working mep-803. Never owned a generator before, so really jumped in with both feet. They all took some minor work but no big deal. I don’t need any of them but they are neat! Probably sell one of the 831s and keep the other. The only issue is one of the 831s has a touchy voltage adjust pot - think it needs replaced.

I do worry about parts availability on the 831 but don’t plan to put many hours on it. Lots of great info on here, glad I found the place. I did think of one question though. My 831s have a yellow tag saying they are filled with first oil fill and to change at 100 hours. (They were reset, looks like a new engine) I assume it is break-in oil. Would you guys agree on a 100hr break-in period on the Yanmar? Thats my plan unless I find contradictory info.

 

[calsdad]

I rolled the dice with the last GL auction and now have two working mep-831s and one working mep-803. Never owned a generator before, so really jumped in with both feet. They all took some minor work but no big deal. I don’t need any of them but they are neat! Probably sell one of the 831s and keep the other. The only issue is one of the 831s has a touchy voltage adjust pot - think it needs replaced.

I do worry about parts availability on the 831 but don’t plan to put many hours on it. Lots of great info on here, glad I found the place. I did think of one question though. My 831s have a yellow tag saying they are filled with first oil fill and to change at 100 hours. (They were reset, looks like a new engine) I assume it is break-in oil. Would you guys agree on a 100hr break-in period on the Yanmar? Thats my plan unless I find contradictory info.

I rolled the dice too and picked up a couple on the last GL auction. Just got the freight shipping stuff finalized today and hope to get them next week. They're both 2 hour units so I'm crossing my fingers that they're in good shape and I can get them up and running without two much work.

Getting the shipping stuff squared away is a bit of a pain. GL recommends using FastTrack Logistics - I asked them for a quote - and never heard back from them. Ended up getting the best quote from UPS Freight by using UShip.com . Problem is GL wants them to arrive in a 15 minute appointment window - UPS Freight (and pretty much all freight shippers that I've ever run across) - usually do arrival times in hours and not minutes. So I'm hoping the freight pickup doesn't turn into some sort of mess.

 

[Guyfang]

I rolled the dice with the last GL auction and now have two working mep-831s and one working mep-803. Never owned a generator before, so really jumped in with both feet. They all took some minor work but no big deal. I don’t need any of them but they are neat! Probably sell one of the 831s and keep the other. The only issue is one of the 831s has a touchy voltage adjust pot - think it needs replaced.

I do worry about parts availability on the 831 but don’t plan to put many hours on it. Lots of great info on here, glad I found the place. I did think of one question though. My 831s have a yellow tag saying they are filled with first oil fill and to change at 100 hours. (They were reset, looks like a new engine) I assume it is break-in oil. Would you guys agree on a 100hr break-in period on the Yanmar? Thats my plan unless I find contradictory info.

Thats why they put break in oil in the engine. So use it. Then start reading threads and see what else you need to do or look at.

 

[jwinner]

I rolled the dice too and picked up a couple on the last GL auction. Just got the freight shipping stuff finalized today and hope to get them next week. They're both 2 hour units so I'm crossing my fingers that they're in good shape and I can get them up and running without two much work.

Getting the shipping stuff squared away is a bit of a pain. GL recommends using FastTrack Logistics - I asked them for a quote - and never heard back from them. Ended up getting the best quote from UPS Freight by using UShip.com . Problem is GL wants them to arrive in a 15 minute appointment window - UPS Freight (and pretty much all freight shippers that I've ever run across) - usually do arrival times in hours and not minutes. So I'm hoping the freight pickup doesn't turn into some sort of mess.

Hope you get it sorted out ok - I just drove the 4 hours from southern Indiana to their warehouse and got them myself. Sounds like yours will be just like mine. As a summary of what I found, I was able to use a 24v charger to get the batteries to hold a charge. Low fuel switch was sticking on one, adding fuel and letting it sit cleared that up. One fuel gauge did not work, bad ground from terminal corrosion. One mechanical governor needed adjustment, one had loose terminals inside the unit that needed tightened. One had the fault indicator panel mounting bolts overtightened and the housing of the indicator is cracked in several places - thinking of using epoxy to help seal it back up. And as I mentioned, the voltage adjust pot is acting up on one.

 

[Farmitall]

Hope you get it sorted out ok - I just drove the 4 hours from southern Indiana to their warehouse and got them myself. Sounds like yours will be just like mine. As a summary of what I found, I was able to use a 24v charger to get the batteries to hold a charge. Low fuel switch was sticking on one, adding fuel and letting it sit cleared that up. One fuel gauge did not work, bad ground from terminal corrosion. One mechanical governor needed adjustment, one had loose terminals inside the unit that needed tightened. One had the fault indicator panel mounting bolts overtightened and the housing of the indicator is cracked in several places - thinking of using epoxy to help seal it back up. And as I mentioned, the voltage adjust pot is acting up on one.

Try spraying/cleaning the voltage pot with some CRC electronics cleaner or other electronics cleaner spray and work it a bit. Stay away from brake cleaners and carb cleaners on these gensets, especially anything that is "chlorinated". They attack plastics and other materials badly.

 

[Farmitall]

I rolled the dice too and picked up a couple on the last GL auction. Just got the freight shipping stuff finalized today and hope to get them next week. They're both 2 hour units so I'm crossing my fingers that they're in good shape and I can get them up and running without two much work.

Getting the shipping stuff squared away is a bit of a pain. GL recommends using FastTrack Logistics - I asked them for a quote - and never heard back from them. Ended up getting the best quote from UPS Freight by using UShip.com . Problem is GL wants them to arrive in a 15 minute appointment window - UPS Freight (and pretty much all freight shippers that I've ever run across) - usually do arrival times in hours and not minutes. So I'm hoping the freight pickup doesn't turn into some sort of mess.

Download and print all the manuals while you're waiting, you will much appreciate having a hard copy in "hard times". You can put them on a thumb drive and bring it to a copy center or do it yourself. I've printed out a couple so far for my set at a cost of about $10 in paper and ink cartridges. Well worth it.

Good luck with your new sets, hope they arrive in top shape. Check them out thoroughly, fluids, filters, wire connections, check for any wire chafe spots, etc.

 

[gstirling]

just got one, seems like a good unit, did have to replace the governor with one of the new electronic ones (not yet installed)(see the classified section). it is not as "quiet" as i was hoping, but it is not as loud as a home depot type gas unit. parts are easy, lots of OEM are still in manufacture and on ebay and various people parting one out. I've had mine to short a time to tell about reliability, but since many show up with thousands of hours on the meter they must be good.

 

[calsdad]

UPS Freight delivered the MEP-831a's today. They both look pretty good - all the parts are there. So I picked one to try and start - but the battery was dead (checked it - it was down at 13 volts) - and the battery cables were disconnected. The ground cable was pulling out of the quick connect so I cut that to get a clean end and screwed it back in and hooked both pos and neg to the battery. Checked the engine oil - and it's full. The fuel tank was dead empty - so I put a couple of gallons of diesel in there and added some Diesel 911. Went thru the manual start procedure using the pull start - and I got the engine to start. The thing is smoking like crazy - and doesn't want to seem to stay running. I see the mechanical governor moving back and forth trying to keep the engine going - and I see the dash gauges alternate between working and not working as the engine RPMs fluctuate. It was running at a good speed for a brief period - and I plugged a Skilsaw into one of the 120v ports and it powered the saw - so it appears that it's putting out power.

I've got to figure out why the thing is running so badly - other than that it appears functional. I rechecked the battery after it had run for just 5 minutes or so - and the voltage was up to 16+ volts. So the 24V charging seems to be working ok too.

 

[AfghanVeteran2010]

UPS Freight delivered the MEP-831a's today. They both look pretty good - all the parts are there. So I picked one to try and start - but the battery was dead (checked it - it was down at 13 volts) - and the battery cables were disconnected. The ground cable was pulling out of the quick connect so I cut that to get a clean end and screwed it back in and hooked both pos and neg to the battery. Checked the engine oil - and it's full. The fuel tank was dead empty - so I put a couple of gallons of diesel in there and added some Diesel 911. Went thru the manual start procedure using the pull start - and I got the engine to start. The thing is smoking like crazy - and doesn't want to seem to stay running. I see the mechanical governor moving back and forth trying to keep the engine going - and I see the dash gauges alternate between working and not working as the engine RPMs fluctuate. It was running at a good speed for a brief period - and I plugged a Skilsaw into one of the 120v ports and it powered the saw - so it appears that it's putting out power.

I've got to figure out why the thing is running so badly - other than that it appears functional. I rechecked the battery after it had run for just 5 minutes or so - and the voltage was up to 16+ volts. So the 24V charging seems to be working ok too.

Might be the battery, try disconnecting it. See what it does after that. Also can you start a separate thread for your generators, it will help us better assist you.

 

[calsdad]

Might be the battery, try disconnecting it. See what it does after that. Also can you start a separate thread for your generators, it will help us better assist you.

Thanks - I'll try that. I started a new thread on the problems I'm seeing.

 

[calsdad]

Anybody have any experience with how often the MEP-831's come up for auction?

I bought two on an auction a number of weeks ago - sold one, the guy came back and said he wanted another one - so I sold the one I was going to hold onto ( couldn't pass up the $$ - I'm out of work right now)

Now I'd like to get another one - but there's nothing up for auction at the moment. There was another auction that went off a week or two after I got mine - but nothing since then.

Just curious if anybody has noticed over the years how often these come up for sale on the auction sites (govplanet, govliquidation)

 

[DieselAddict]

They seem to go in waves. I've not seen a specific pattern. More sporadic. I don't think you'll see any more on GL. The contract for that kind of equipment went to one of the other liquidation companies. The downside is the prices on IronPlanet are MUCH higher than what they were going for on GL.

On the plus side it seems that there were a LOT of those units built so don't worry that the supply will be gone. Not anytime soon at least.

 

[calsdad]

They seem to go in waves. I've not seen a specific pattern. More sporadic. I don't think you'll see any more on GL. The contract for that kind of equipment went to one of the other liquidation companies. The downside is the prices on IronPlanet are MUCH higher than what they were going for on GL.

On the plus side it seems that there were a LOT of those units built so don't worry that the supply will be gone. Not anytime soon at least.

Thanks - good info.

I have noticed that the prices these typically go for on GovPlanet are definitely higher than what stuff goes for on govliquidation.com

I'll just have to keep watching to see if they come up again.