New to camper van rving, bought a 25 year old coachman can with a 20 yr old Onan microlite 2800, van in great shape with only 60k miles,bought last November, used generator afew times over winter,ran fine, does not stay started,took to an Onan teck and he says need to put generator,some electrical problem,. Tough question,is it worth fixing,. Tx. Anybody know gentec industry in Riverton. NJ, they have my rv

Billyrv1232 wrote:,ran fine, does not stay started,Do you mean that it USED to run fine and now won't ??Probably worth the price of a diagnosis at the Onan shop.Then you can compare the repair price to the cost of a new 3K stand-alone generator to replace it.......which likely can be had for a LOT less than a new Onan.One little hint: Have you checked the oil level ?They are made to shut down if the oil gets low.That can also happen if it is down just a little bit but is not sitting level.

Onan is now owned by Cummins and most Cummins shops will be able to service it. Probably just needs some brushes and have the junk blown out of the windings. A 2.5 kw unit from Norwall's is $2500.Looks like the closest service to you is in Freehold.Onan

Billyrv1232 wrote:New to camper van rving, bought a 25 year old coachman can with a 20 yr old Onan microlite 2800, van in great shape with only 60k miles,bought last November, used generator afew times over winter,ran fine, does not stay started,took to an Onan teck and he says need to put generator,some electrical problem,. Tough question,is it worth fixing,. Tx. Anybody know gentec industry in Riverton. NJ, they have my rvNot familiar with gentec, but not staying started doesn't sound like an electric-electric problem (as in 120V). It may be an electrical problem with the engine (ignition, plugs, wires, points if it still had them). Recently my 33-year-old Onan 6.5 wouldn't stay running, either. It was the ignition points (engine electrical).

I had two things to consider on getting setup with a generator. One to run the whole 30A Electrical system or a smaller portable generator to just run my on-board converter/charger to charge up a bigger battery bank that will run just a few of things we might want to have running when camping off-grid...With this in mind I went with the smaller portable generator which sets secured in the tail gate corner of my truck bed...I beefed up my converter/charger and added more batteries right after I purchased my OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer with the thought in mind to have eough batteries to run through one day/night run off the batteries. Than at 8AM each morning when allowed to run my portable generator I can recharge my batteries back up to their 90% charge state in about a three hour generator run time and this will let me do all of this all over for the next day/night run off my batteries. This involves me having a Power Inverter to produce some 120VAC for a few of my low wattage things like the Home Entertainment setup etc... The other necessary items run off of propane or battery...This is what we have been doing since 2009 on my 255AH battery bank and it is all second nature to us now when camping off-grid.For us not having to run the generator for real long time runs makes for a very quiet camping experience and doesn't bother other folks camping near us at all... My little Honda 2KW generator is so quiet I can be leaning up against the truck and not hear it if I have the tail gate closed haha...This is what we still do today here with my smaller camping setup... We are not into using the RV for Travel modes - Just for camping back off trail and in the high country within a couple hundred miles of us here in Virginia.This will work for motorhome camping as well but I am pretty sure if I had a motorhome setup with a built-in generator I probably would keep the larger generator that would run the whole 30A electrical system... There is problems associated with both built-ion and portable generators trying to blend in with the other camp ground users...Roy Ken

If it starts then quits as soon as the switch is released, there is an electrical problem. The generator may not be producing, there may be a problem with the high temp or low oil shutdown or the control board. If it starts, runs then quits look for a fuel delivery problem.

Generator investment | Good Sam Community

jplante4
Explorer II
Jun 06, 2017
Onan is now owned by Cummins and most Cummins shops will be able to service it. Probably just needs some brushes and have the junk blown out of the windings. A 2.5 kw unit from Norwall's is $2500.

Looks like the closest service to you is in Freehold.

Onan
Sam_Spade
Explorer
Jun 06, 2017
Billyrv1232 wrote:
,ran fine, does not stay started,

Do you mean that it USED to run fine and now won't ??

Probably worth the price of a diagnosis at the Onan shop.

Then you can compare the repair price to the cost of a new 3K stand-alone generator to replace it.......which likely can be had for a LOT less than a new Onan.

One little hint: Have you checked the oil level ?
They are made to shut down if the oil gets low.
That can also happen if it is down just a little bit but is not sitting level.

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