So the good news is I have a better understanding of this thing for next time I have to pull it out again.
This was one of the biggest silver linings to my generator work. I now know the thing very well. I can yank my genny in under 30 minutes now.
Steve
That said, I purchased one of these 500 lb. Capacity Hydraulic Table Carts when I had to drop my gas tank to have it welded, and at the same time, replaced the fuel pump. This thing made the job quite safe as I didn't have any help with the process.
Thanks for that link, Rick! That thing looks PERFECT! I wish I had known about that before I got started. In fact I'm tempted to buy one even though I don't need it right now! ๐ that table jack would be just the thing for lowering the genny out of my RV.
Steve- you are awesome. Thank you so much for pointing me in that direction, and for your other advice as well.
I have a friend who knows a guy who has a shop with a forklift, and they're going to help me get this thing out. Conceptually I think I know what has to happen, and I'll get on over to the Smokstak forum and start asking more.
DW and I were talking about it last night and we could drop the $3k on this but in principle it just doesn't seem right for us. If it were $1500 I'd probably have said go but this is crazy.
No prob, Mark. Before I finally bit the bullet on figuring out my Onan the genny was kind of a magical "black box" to me that I was afraid to poke at. Now that I've done it, after spending 6 months dinking around trying to diagnose things I wish I had just bitten the bullet earlier and pulled the thing and found the replacement parts and just started replacing stuff. Like I said above - if you can find non-Onan replacement parts it gets really cheap to simply replace rather than trying to troubleshoot.
I don't know if the Onan 7K is like my Onan 4BGE but here is a word of caution: When you go to take out the ignition control module on the 4BGE, it will not come out unless you rotate the motor crankshaft until a short cooling fin comes up and lines up with the ICM. You have to look in there with a flashlight after you loosen up the ICM. Watch for the short fin to come up - only then is there enough room to pull the ICM out.
Are you sure you can't get to the coil without pulling the genset out? I replaced my coil several years ago for less than $100. The hardest part was removing the shroud and some of the other sht metal surrounds. Once removed the coil replacement was easy. It was a half day job including removal of the mouse nest under the shroud on top of the engine, it is a wonder that it did not catch on fire.
On my 4BGE, the coil is mounted on a bracket on the top-back side of the genny. It's possible, now that I know how it goes together, that I could do it without pulling the genny. Especially when I put down my RV jacks to lift the RV, and then put in jackstands under the frame (for safety) , and then tilt down the genny on it's swing-down tray (in my RV). I found it very hard to get the shroud bolts back in after removing because the shrouds flex (they are just sheet metal) and it was super hard to get the holes to light up with the threaded holes again. All this problem went away when I had the genny out and on my workbench.
Plus in my RV the genny is down low to the ground and so you have to work on your knees while trying to be hunched over reaching around the genny. It's a very uncomfortable position to work in.
Like I said, now that I know how to do it, I could probably replace everything again without pulling the genny. But, it's also so easy to pull the genny out that I might do it anyway just to make it easier to work on it. I can probably pull my genny in 20 minutes now. If I had that fancy jack cart that Rick mentioned above I could do it even faster.
But no, you don't have to pull the genny to replace many things on it.
Steve
