What to look for Buying MEP-005a from GL CA

[leedawg]

Hey guys been lurking around here for a long time and dont post very often. I have been looking into purchasing a MEP-004 or a MEP-005 and noticed that GL finally has a fairly large lot of MEP-005 in barstow ca which is several hours from where I live but figured this would be the auction to pick one up if able. Ive read all I can on here about other peoples experiences especially sewerzuk and how to rewire these units to single phase 240. Thanks all for you contributions.

SO here are my questions. Ive never purchased from GL before I have an account and as I recall in the past I thought you had to get an EUC for generators. Well all the lots at the barstow auction in ca say nothing about an EUC so Does that mean I can just roll down and pick up my unit assuming I win one of them?

2. I am not able to go inspect the units due to the distance and work. What have peoples experiences been on just looking at the pictures and hopefully not getting an expensive very heavy paper weight? I have been looking through each lot and made a list of about 30 of them that dont look to banged up and have all the instruments and switches intact on the panel. The pics do not allow me to see whats inside however under the access panels. I assume its probably a crap shoot what you get.

3. If I buy one from GL would it be a good idea to just buy two and use one for parts or am I just making a 1 gen set problem really 2 now? Are parts pretty easy to locate for these units? I feel as though finding small parts that are more obscure if missing could be challenging and start to add up quickly.

4. I know this is a subjective question but what is a good ball park figure for what I should be paying for one of these units? I am sure its heavily based on condition of each individual set. I was thinking of setting my spending limit in the neighborhood of 1200 dollars or so for one of the lots down in Barstow? IS that unreasonable should I move that up down or what? When I was hunting for a mep-003 I found that they would sell for 1800 or more and the same mystery not necessarily running.

5. speaking of running what does condition F7 mean? I usually see H7 on stuff. Does F7 mean that these units have a better chance of coming back to life with relatively little amount of money spent? I am honestly hoping to just change fluids possibly rebuild injection pump, replace filters, and crank it over and hope she fires up and makes power. Is this unreasonable? I have seen "refurbished sets selling for over 7k" so makes me wonder if there is that much work to be done on these to get them back into running condition?

6. If I do end up getting one do you think my 01 F350 short bed could handle the weight of one of these? I see numbers from 2300 lbs to 3500 sure would be nice to be able to not have to haul it home on a trailer.

Im sure some of you will ask what my application for this unit will be. Honestly its going to be back up power for my house, barn, 2 wells 7 ton ac unit in the house and irrigation system for the farm. I currently have a MEP 003 and it can barley run the house and one of the wells. If the AC kicks in or the other well or something at the barn it kicks right out. So I figured the MEP 005 would be more than enough power to keep up with everything running. That being said im sure somebody will mention wet stacking as a huge problem so my plan for that is if the house and everything does not provide enough load I will probably have to build some type of load bank to keep the set running at least 50% load with everything from the house going. I read in the manual that there is actually a load bank for these that automatically kicks in and out based on generator load percentage. Does anybody know where you could acquire this kit of ever see them come up for auction?


Thanks so much in advance for any advice info you can give me I really appreciate it. I am sure if I procure one of these units I will have many more questions.

Here is a link to the GL auction Government Liquidation

 

[ETN550]

I don't work on these larger ones so I won't say too much.

No EUC needed from what I can tell. Never has been on the small units. GL divides up the stuff that needs an EUC. Look for the red icon on the event or lot listing.

The engines on the 004 and 005 are very obsolete, but also very nice utility grade units and well suited to endless duty at 1800rpm. The injection pump and nozzles can still be rebuilt by local diesel shops which is a plus. That's the main thing that always needs attention.

The units in CA should go below market in general due to location and quantity offered. For a quality built unit these cannot be beat for dollars per kw or per pound.

For your application I would buy a spare if you have the room to keep it. For true dependable back up you also need to get parts fast when something is down or have a spare ready to go. Maybe even build a really good one from two units.

With your loads I don't think you will have a wet stack problem. As long as you hit 75%+ or so for a while every so often.

 

[Isaac-1]

1, They dropped the requirement for EUC on generators and trailer/generator combinations about a year ago, this means you can buy on a Monday and schedule a pickup appointment on a Tuesday and pick up on a Wednesday (assuming paperwork goes through in a timely manner, etc, it can sometimes take over 24 hours for the paid invoice to process).

2, I have now bought 5 generators from GL (6 if you count the one going to a fellow board member included in the lot of 3 I bought a couple of weeks ago) All were easy to fix, only 1 was fully functional needing only oil, filters, fuel and batteries. 2 of the generators were larger commercial diesels (125KW Onan and 33KW Kohler, the others were 3KW MEP-016 family diesels, and a MEP-002a). Repair has ranged from replacing clogged filters, minor wring issues, bad voltage regulators (both battery charging and AC), to a lightly seized engine the was freed up after a week long soak in ATF and Marvel mystery oil on the Kohler, and a new $300 control board and rebuilding injection pump for $600 on the Onan. (the old injection pump ran, but it smoked)

3, It depends on the part, in general you should at least budget the cost of an injection pump rebuild , buying 2 will increase your odds of getting a good one of course.

4, Prices vary a lot on GL, I just bought a MEP-002a for under $400 and others in the same lot sold for $350-$700, for many months I have been watching all similar units sell around here for well over $1,000 on GL which is odd since local generator prices tend to go up during hurricane season. My guess is to expect most MEP-005's to sell somewhere upwards of $2,000, more so if on trailers just considering the scrap value.

5, I have found the condition codes on GL stuff useless, this may vary from location to location, but it seems to be set by the unit that turns the equipment in, I have bought HX stuff that worked fine or needed simple repair, and I have bought F7 stuff the same way. (I don't recall buying any F7 Paperweights, but around here it is rare to see F7's at all). Note this last batch of 3 generators I bought were listed as F7, and they all needed some minor work (clogged filters and bad AVR transistor, wrong hour meter (DC hour meter connected to AC outlet) that sort of thing.

6, I drive a 2000 shortbed F250 Super Duty crew cab (8800 GVWR) and just carried a MEP-002 and a pair of MEP-016D's in it, that weighed in at about 1600 pounds, plus a fairly full tool box, so around 2,000 pounds total cargo in the bed so I was somewhat close weight rating of the F250 , and it handled ok at least for about 100 miles of driving mostly on rural highways with a 65 mph speed limit, I am not sure I would want to try much more weight than that though, the F350 should be capable of a good bit more, particularly if it is a dual rear wheel model.

Ike

 

[leedawg]

Thank you both for the responses. Sounds like the MEP-005 is a decent unit and as mentioned cant be beat for the price. Most of the units that put out this power as I said in the civ sets are well over 20k. I may look into getting two of them will depend on how the auction goes and where the final price ends up. At most I dont really want to pay over 2k for one of these incase I have to put another 1k in to get it to run plus all the fuel burned for recovery.

Thanks again both IKE and ETN550 for the insights much to think about.

Reading the bad experiences of ppl with GL its a bit nail biting to throw around 2k and have the possibility of not getting what you paid for or have to end up paying 25% more for it because they claim you did not pay.

Thanks again will look forward to reporting back what happens.

Lee