I picked up the MEP-003A at Ft Jackson today and pulled it home. The trailer has a new top and two new tires. Otherwise, the trailer has a lot of rust and corrosion. Both tail light assemblies are bent, and the hydraulic line from the tongue rearward is broken in two. Sandblasting and paint would fix the trailer, but I'm not certain I want to keep the generator on the trailer.
Now the good news. Although a lot of the screws and bolts are rusty sand both batteries are ruined, the generator works fine. The oil was full and looked like the generator hadn't been run since it was changed. The tank was full of some nasty looking diesel, which I intend to drain. After finding out that the batteries would not take a charge, I hooked up cables to my deuce. I didn't intend to start the engine, just see if it would turn over. After switching to run, I heard the fuel pump come on. I let the pump run for about 30 seconds. I hit the start switch and the engine started after perhaps two revolutions, and then died. I looked at the oil pressure gauge and it was up a good ways and falling, so I hit the starter again. This time it fired up immediately and kept on running. I never hit pre-heat. The oil pressure was good. I let the engine run for about an hour while I checked the voltages. Everything works perfectly, although to thoroughly evaluate it I need to do a load test on it.
That thing is really noisy! I live on 32 acres in the Blue Ridge mountains, all mountainous terrain. I pulled it up a road on the property to about 1000 feet higher than my house to start it, because that was where my deuce was parked. The noise echoed down through the valley. I drove about a half mile down the highway from my house and I could still hear it running. I'm going to start cleaning it up and decide where to station it for power back-up. I'll pick up some batteries tomorrow
