Running generator while driving in the rain

Executive wrote:
Who the heck drives in the rain....:h:h:h.......:B....Dennis

I only drive in the rain when there's no snow available. :E. :B

et2 wrote:

Medico wrote:
I do not know if this has been mentioned (did not read the whole thread, sorry). We do not need the generator running during travel. We run all our 120v (fridge included) off the inverter, which runs from the house batteries. The house batteries are charged from the coach system while running the engine, hence no need to run the generator in addition to the engine.

Some run the generator while driving to cool the coach when it's hot or cold. It's probably he only time the gen gets ran as most of the time shore power is utilized. Besides the gen needs to be statrted and under a load to keep it running properly, that's a good time to do this as your neighbors won't care for it running when parked.

I start my generator monthly and run under load for about an hour. My generator is very quiet and none of my neighbors has complained. I do always mention to them what I will be doing ahead of time. I guess I have not traveled enough to find a time when I needed the generator running to cool the coach. So far I have been able to cool things sufficiently w/o it running. Our rear bedroom has an AC from the engine. This combined with our dash AC has been sufficient so far. My inverters do have the capacity to run the fridge and an AC (we have a total of 3 ACs on the roof) without sweating so I guess even in hot travel I would not need to run the generator, but as I said, I have not encountered this situation yet.

lfeather wrote:

SCVJeff wrote:

workhardplayharder wrote:

Executive wrote:
Who the heck drives in the rain....:h:h:h.......:B....Dennis

Only in driving rain.:Z

Can't argue that one...

Not a common practice, but sometimes we may get caught up in it...

(he made a funny... It's a pun)

Executive wrote:
Who the heck drives in the rain....:h:h:h.......:B....Dennis

X-2, First post that makes sense too me!

tony lee wrote:
Of course there is the possibility of water getting into the air intake system of any engine if the rain is heavy enough and the air intake is facing in the wrong direction.
Get out in a severe downpour and watch the rain bouncing back up off the road and then imagine a vehicle driving into that sheet of near solid water at 50mph. Then place the air intake of the ONAN a foot off the ground and right at the front and the question becomes not if the water can get in, but how far up the intake system it can get before it falls out of the airstream.

I doubt whether there is much danger of enough water getting through into the cylinders to do much but there is a real possibility that the water will get to the air cleaner and soak it and it will fall to pieces.

How could that happen??

Well, that is the only explanation anyone could come up for this

My explanation for that would be cheap Fram filter.
And that didn't come out of any Onan I've ever seen.

Interesting post, as I had a generator issue a couple of days ago. Like Dennis, I try to avoid driving in the rain. But we hit one of those gulf coast showers on I-10 between Biloxi and Pascagoula, MS. We were running the genny to provide air conditioning. My fuel supply was getting a bit low. We stopped in a rest area for a few minutes to wait out the rain, then continued on I-10. We hit another downpour, and as I started up the slope on one of those tall bridges, my genny quit.

I tried to start it when we stopped for fuel; no luck. We continued to our destination. Next morning I checked everything on the genny -- circuit breakers, oil & coolant level, etc. -- everything was good. I held down the prime for a few seconds, then tried starting. It sputtered once, but died. I repeated this procedure several times, each time getting the genny to run for a few seconds. It finally started and ran rough for a few seconds, then smoothed out and has been fine since.

My belief is that, due to my low fuel condiiton, the genny ran out of fuel and sucked the filter and fuel lines dry as I was on the upslope of the bridge. With a full fuel tank on the coach, and repeated priming, the genny started. I believe it didn't have anything to do with the rain -- but I will still avoid rain whenever possible. I also try to avoid driving at night. So far, I've been successful in avoiding driving at night in the rain.

Medico wrote:
I do not know if this has been mentioned (did not read the whole thread, sorry). We do not need the generator running during travel. We run all our 120v (fridge included) off the inverter, which runs from the house batteries. The house batteries are charged from the coach system while running the engine, hence no need to run the generator in addition to the engine.

Some run the generator while driving to cool the coach when it's hot or cold. It's probably he only time the gen gets ran as most of the time shore power is utilized. Besides the gen needs to be statrted and under a load to keep it running properly, that's a good time to do this as your neighbors won't care for it running when parked.

I do not know if this has been mentioned (did not read the whole thread, sorry). We do not need the generator running during travel. We run all our 120v (fridge included) off the inverter, which runs from the house batteries. The house batteries are charged from the coach system while running the engine, hence no need to run the generator in addition to the engine.

SCVJeff wrote:

workhardplayharder wrote:

Executive wrote:
Who the heck drives in the rain....:h:h:h.......:B....Dennis

Only in driving rain.:Z

Can't argue that one...

Not a common practice, but sometimes we may get caught up in it...

Of course there is the possibility of water getting into the air intake system of any engine if the rain is heavy enough and the air intake is facing in the wrong direction.
Get out in a severe downpour and watch the rain bouncing back up off the road and then imagine a vehicle driving into that sheet of near solid water at 50mph. Then place the air intake of the ONAN a foot off the ground and right at the front and the question becomes not if the water can get in, but how far up the intake system it can get before it falls out of the airstream.

I doubt whether there is much danger of enough water getting through into the cylinders to do much but there is a real possibility that the water will get to the air cleaner and soak it and it will fall to pieces.

How could that happen??

Well, that is the only explanation anyone could come up for this