"New" maintainence item for Onan Quiet Diesel

[larry_cad]

I decided it was time to perform maintenance on my Onan and went out and got fuel filter, oil filter, and air filter, as well as oil and even radiator coolant. I also went to Youtube and watched a video on how to do it all when I came across an item I had never worked on before. I found out there is a "spark arrestor" mounted into the exhaust system that has to be cleaned. It is located up inside the genny and you need an 11/16" socket mounted on a very long extension. The procedure is to unscrew the 11/16" "plug" which allows soot to come out. Then you fire up the genny and run it under a heavy load like the A/C and microwave for a few minutes. Then you screw the plug back in and the cleaning is done. Since this is my first time working on the genny, I have not done this before and not sure other facilities have done it either. I also don't know what the down side is to not cleaning this item. Anyway, it is now done and no knuckles busted.

As an aside, the last time my genny was serviced, was at Cummins Atlantic in Charleston SC. There is a metal plate which covers the air cleaner filter and apparently Cummins Atlantic decided to leave the cover on the old air cleaner element and not install it onto the new one. I had to buy a new one for about $18. The net effect of this was to allow a whole lot of dirty air to enter into the open top of the filter. I am not happy about this!

[larry_cad]

ferndaleflyer wrote:
wonder if mine has any soot in it after 3100 hours? I never cleaned it. Quiet 7500 diesel

That would be a pretty good bet. 🙂

[vance]

Pulled mine several times and never have gotten soot. If you let you unit idle quite a bit, you will probably get soot. I try to keep mine loaded as much as possible when I run it.

[ferndaleflyer]

wonder if mine has any soot in it after 3100 hours? I never cleaned it. Quiet 7500 diesel

[Trap]

larry cad wrote:
I decided it was time to perform maintenance on my Onan and went out and got fuel filter, oil filter, and air filter, as well as oil and even radiator coolant. I also went to Youtube and watched a video on how to do it all when I came across an item I had never worked on before. I found out there is a "spark arrestor" mounted into the exhaust system that has to be cleaned. It is located up inside the genny and you need an 11/16" socket mounted on a very long extension. The procedure is to unscrew the 11/16" "plug" which allows soot to come out. Then you fire up the genny and run it under a heavy load like the A/C and microwave for a few minutes. Then you screw the plug back in and the cleaning is done. Since this is my first time working on the genny, I have not done this before and not sure other facilities have done it either. I also don't know what the down side is to not cleaning this item. Anyway, it is now done and no knuckles busted.

As an aside, the last time my genny was serviced, was at Cummins Atlantic in Charleston SC. There is a metal plate which covers the air cleaner filter and apparently Cummins Atlantic decided to leave the cover on the old air cleaner element and not install it onto the new one. I had to buy a new one for about $18. The net effect of this was to allow a whole lot of dirty air to enter into the open top of the filter. I am not happy about this!

If it's an Onan 10kw the it will be a brass plug requiring an 11/16" socket. Do not use a 12 point socket as it can easily round the head (found that out the hard way) mine was in so tight that I ended up having to soak the bolt for a week spraying penetrating oil on it daily. It came out fairly easy then. My gennie had 250 hours on it and there was not a lot of carbon that came out of there.

Also suggest using anti-seize when you re install the bolt.

[Passin_Thru]

My new super Hero name "Soot Dodger!"

[Rick_Jay]

Well, I've done it on my Onan 7000 gas generator and little, if anything, comes out. Apparently the diesel generators create a lot more soot. I guess that's not so unexpected. 🙂

~Rick

[Fifty4F100]

Is this spark arrestor on all Onan diesel gensets?

[larry_cad]

JoeH wrote:
Larry-- did any soot come out ? I was reading another post somewhere about the spark arrestor and everyone all said that nothing came out.

Yes, soot came out! And be sure to heed the advice from others, and dodge the soot!

🙂

[doc_brown]

cbeierl wrote:
Soot definitely comes out of mine each time I service it.

I clean out the spark arrestor every 150 hrs with the basic maintainence and oh yes soot comes out.

[usersmanual]

cbeierl wrote:
Soot definitely comes out of mine each time I service it.

bought my unit as a repo 979 hours on 8K onan read about the spark arrester cleaning took out plug zero soot zero nothing comes out
so I guess it depends?

[cbeierl]

Soot definitely comes out of mine each time I service it.

[JoeH]

larry cad wrote:
I decided it was time to perform maintenance on my Onan and went out and got fuel filter, oil filter, and air filter, as well as oil and even radiator coolant. I also went to Youtube and watched a video on how to do it all when I came across an item I had never worked on before. I found out there is a "spark arrestor" mounted into the exhaust system that has to be cleaned. It is located up inside the genny and you need an 11/16" socket mounted on a very long extension. The procedure is to unscrew the 11/16" "plug" which allows soot to come out. Then you fire up the genny and run it under a heavy load like the A/C and microwave for a few minutes. Then you screw the plug back in and the cleaning is done. Since this is my first time working on the genny, I have not done this before and not sure other facilities have done it either. I also don't know what the down side is to not cleaning this item. Anyway, it is now done and no knuckles busted.

As an aside, the last time my genny was serviced, was at Cummins Atlantic in Charleston SC. There is a metal plate which covers the air cleaner filter and apparently Cummins Atlantic decided to leave the cover on the old air cleaner element and not install it onto the new one. I had to buy a new one for about $18. The net effect of this was to allow a whole lot of dirty air to enter into the open top of the filter. I am not happy about this!

Larry-- did any soot come out ? I was reading another post somewhere about the spark arrestor and everyone all said that nothing came out.

[crasster]

lj2654 wrote:
remember to not have your face or especially eyes below this bolt. The soot comes out and drops into your eyes.

X2, I'd use a mini-vac with a pointy end. Unbolt with one hand vac with the other to avoid a soot filled eyewash. 🙂

[w4phj]

lj2654 wrote:
remember to not have your face or especially eyes below this bolt. The soot comes out and drops into your eyes.

How do you know that?:)