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Securiti's avatar
Securiti
Explorer
May 12, 2018

Onan Generator stalling when driving fix.

I have a Onan 7000 that was giveing me nothing but trouble for 2 years. I changed the oil. And it would randomly stalll when going down the road. So I after trying a lot of fix’s on it. I gave up and took it out replacing it with a small 3500 watt model for a year. So after desiding I was tired of the 3500 watt model not being enough. I put the 7000 watt Onan back in. And desided I was fixing it no matter what. So I finally discovered that if I rock vehicle real hard. The generator would stall. So I am going to skip everything that I went through two I get to the fix I noticed that if I left the cover off of it it would stay running. So I decided to have a look at it. And I found out that they aluminum insulation on the cover was shorting out the oil sensor wire when the vehicle was going around the turn. The electrical connector on the oil sensor with touch the aluminum insulation fabric and ground the generator out Causing it to give a low oil code. Short story. Fixed after almost 2 years. Happy ?? Just posting this in case someone else has the same problem
  • Hmmmm....interesting....I suspected an oil related issue on our Onan as on HOT days, it would sometimes shut down if braking hard or I hit a large pothole. I originally used the multi-viscosity grade oil which was recommended as we sometimes camp late into the Fall when temps are below freezing. But, I ended up replacing the multi-viscosity oil with a straight 30W, which was also recommend for the temperature warmer temp range I was operating it in. That seemed to fix the problem. So far, I haven't noticed any issues with the thicker oil in the colder temps. We don't do that often, though, so I don't expect any long term effects.

    Interesting that you were able to trace it down to the insulation. I believe our sensor has an insulator over the connectors...but I'll have to check on that next time I'm out there.

    Thanks for posting your findings. That oil level sensor seems to be a common cause of unexplained stalling on these things.

    ~Rick

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