Boondocking, Generator & HEAT!

Don't know if it is a factor in your case or not......but my generator tries to blow it's cooling air DOWN where it hits the ground and just kind of accumulates under the floor of the RV. When it is HOT out, I put a medium sized "desk" fan under there to blow the hot air OUT from under the floor.

This is pretty common in the Las Vegas area in the summer...Ken

An RV Onan generator over-heating - due purely to any natural ambient air temperatures that one would find in the U.S. - doesn't quite "sound right" to me.

These RV generators cost around $3K on up, so they should be able to take natural high ambient air temperatues if the oil used in them is the grade that Onan recommends for high temperatures. I'll bet that built-in Onan vehicle generators are used around the world, including in the hottest places on Earth.

I wonder if some marginal part in your generator didn't cause it to fail just from long hours of running, per se?

A couple of other thoughts: If you ran it while going down the road ... where is the Onan's radiator located relative to the scorching air washing off behind the RV's hot engine while underway? Due to this, perhaps the air coming in around your Onan's radiator was in fact way higher than the ambient air temperatures. Adding to this, the ambient air temperatures for several feet above hot highway concrete/blacktop surfaces are going to naturally be much higher than the ambient air temperatures above the ground at campsites.

Then again, perhaps if our summers are going to average hotter and hotter, RV generator designers will need to up their game such that their generators - if properly maintained - can be used 24/7 for long periods regardless of ambient air temperatures in a campsite or when going down the road.

I can't speak to the Onan but I do have a front mounted water cooled Power Tech 10 KW diesel generator on our Vogue. We travel in Hot weather all the time where I've run it for days on end with little down time. Knock on wood, it has always been up to the task, I do monitor the temps closely but since my dash air hasn't worked for a long time, I rely on the Gen and roof airs.