Sometimes its nice to just sit in the dark and think, But that usually ends up costing me money of the things I come up with.

Big Smiles,
Jim

Have you seen my mind?....
I seem to have lost it.

 

Dave,

I have three electric start Onan's and one small carry around, currently trying to get one more Onan. I like to bring them back from the dead. Was going to a gun show in Pa 2 years ago and passed a guy driving a BIG truck loaded with junk looked like he was looking for a yard to dump it in. Well underneath you could barely make out an older 60's onan and I tried to talk my son AND the driver to follow him to try to wheel and deal the onan away from him, they wouldn't go for it. Anyway my son made a purchase that made the trip well worthwhile. Want me to ship you one? Its cool when your the only place with lectric after the storms, later.

Booger /wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif

If a dog has no tail, how can you tell he's glad to see you?

 

Hey CJDave,
i've been thinking about getting a personnal generator myself, i'm kind of leaning twards the kind that comes with a Motorhome permantly encased around it, if you know what i mean..

3/4tonYJ
My Jeep Page

 

my neighbors really think i'm nuts....they kinda got used to me firing up the jeep and running air tools off my york, but last year when a hurricane hit and i fired it up to run the inverter, they thought i was nuts....i had the radio blasting, and lots of ice for margaritas(blender and all) i was even prepared anough to dig out the hard top for that thing...

~~Elusive~~
it's sort of still a cj thingy....see it at http://www.jeepgod.net

 

Coming from someone that operates an electric utility system for about 12,000 customers in eastern North Carolina, I appreciate you guys that prepare and don't bug me when I am trying to get the power lines back up.

I get some customers call in the middle of a hurricane, when the winds are blowing 70 mph and want me to send a crew to their house, AT THAT MOMENT, to get their lights back on. I usually get real sarcastic and remind them in a very, very nice voice that we are having a hurricane.

But, you got to love working for 72 hours straight during and after storms like that.

o|||||o
/wwwthreads_images/icons/crazy.gif A conclusion is simply the place where you got tired of thinking. /wwwthreads_images/icons/tongue.gif
http://keith.cj8.tripod.com
cj8_jeep@hotmail.com

 

We're pretty lucky with electrical power in my section of Philadelphia. Our electric rarely goes out; usually during a thunderstorm in the summertime and only for an hour or so max. Fortunately, our natural gas and water service are both gravity fed so as long as that "gravity generator" is working we have some of the necessaries./wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif/wwwthreads_images/icons/wink.gif

Oh, er...Dave, whatever you do....Don't put a penny in that fuse box/wwwthreads_images/icons/laugh.gif

 

I don't envy you power guys. The majority of the time you have to go out, it's during a storm, and usually at night, then there's the unreasonable consumers. Our jeep club helped Central Maine Power get a lot of back roads passable again after the ice storm, it was a lot of work, some people were without power for 3 weeks. It's understandable, it took us 5 hours to clear 2 miles of road, just so we could get the off-road rigs down it (to get the people food, they walked out), never mind a bucket truck. Then there's the bonehead snow plow drivers working for the podunk towns, we passed one going down Rt 219 when were were at the end of it. Later the road was closed because some idiot got a bunch of electric lines caught in his plow and dragged them to the next county, what a mess. That was a few years ago and the damage is still apparent. My hats off to you guys.

JEEPN
'81 CJ-8 Scrambled!
GM151/SM465/NP205 twinstick/7"Lift/33"TSL's/IHC D44's 4.10's Lock'd

 

/wwwthreads_images/icons/tongue.gif Our new home in Middle America will have a HUGE propane tank and a nice little four-banger for power. Maybe even a set where we have the little guy, and the big one, so we can run the one which matches up the best with the load. Either way it will be propane. We can't keep diesel long term/wwwthreads_images/icons/crazy.gif Yeah,....you'll have to teach me something about Onans, they're one of my favorite smaller units. Even the big ones are OK as long as they arent the REAL big ones, then they have a few problems with the bus shaking loose/wwwthreads_images/icons/crazy.gif

CJDave
Quadra-Trac modified by the crack moonguy/wwwthreads_images/icons/wink.gif/wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif/wwwthreads_images/icons/tongue.gif transfer case team.

 

Dave, so glad to hear of your problems. The company I work for packages big i.e. 300KW 16 cylinder quad-turbo CAT diesel generators in custom enclosures with integral fuel tanks. Soo, misfortune's like yours helps buy my Jeep parts. Seriously, based upon my experience, and common-sense I will say to you and others considering standby generators that Propane is way better than diesel for home use. Also, I occasionally see an ONAN at work, plus Dad's had one for over 25 years at the farm and I agree that thier reputation for quality and longevity is well deserved. Now is probably a good time to buy a generator as all the fools who bought into the Y2K lunacy are realizing their foolishness and are looking to recoup some cash. Or if your lucky you'll come across a deal like I did about five years ago. I got a 1952 military generator conservatively rated at 5KW powered by a magneto-sparked (needs a TR upgrade) four cylinder Crosley car engine. This baby makes Three-phase 120 (I don't know why) among other things and the thanks I got from my wife after her 1st hot shower (electric well-pump and water heater) when all the neighnors were freezing in the dark for three days made the $100.00 I paid for it the bargain of the century!
P.S. Don't forget the transfer switch. Stay away from the cheapo things they sell at home depot and get a real one. Every time you use it you'll realize it was worth it.

jay2jeeps and a big 'ol Dodge
Join the NRA! It's the most important $35.00 you'll ever spend!
http://www.nrahq.org

 

Nice thing about Onan generator sets, they usually produce in excess of their rated capacity. Can't say that for most of the others. Usually when we do work at 9-10K feet, we need generators rated at over 4 times the equipment used. Two times for the loss of power due to eleveation, and two time for start-up current.

My Onan has been tested at 6200 feet, and it produces 150% of the rated amps and merrily chugs along.

Enjoying Montana's Big Sky (& rocks & rivers & mountians etc, You get the picture.)

 

I bought a house in the Fla. Keys, and about 10 minutes after we signed the papers, the first hurricane warning came on the radio...
(Just my luck...)

After living most of my adult life in Tornado Alley, I was really disappointed in that category 1 hurricane...
---------------------------------------------

If you want a reasonably priced generator, look for a scrap yard that specializes in RV's.
They are cheap, dependable, usually come with all the output wiring in place, and you can get the breaker boxes and ship to shore boxes pretty reasonably.
The one I have was on a travel trailer that was totaled in a storm before it was ever sold, and I paid about $350 for an Onan, 5,000 continuous watts, 6,500 watts surge, had 0.6 hours on the hour meter, and it's a low RPM unit, so it doesn't vibrate your brains out when it's running... Real quiet.


"I Have The Body Of A God... Buddha"

 

/wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif I am a HUGE fan of 1800 RPM units./wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif The 3600 RPM drive me nuts/wwwthreads_images/icons/crazy.gif. Of course I like 1200 RPM even BETTER,/wwwthreads_images/icons/wink.gifbut they tend to be on the big side./wwwthreads_images/icons/tongue.gif Like I could have had a big Fairbanks Morse Diesel gen set for free. All I had to do was take it out of a hospital basement where the facility had overgrown the big doorway, and the only egress was up twelve feet and out a hallway door past ICU!!! I do believe that one was an EIGHT POLE....900 RPM .....just the engine BASE weighed about two tons! You take 7200 and divide by the number of poles to find RPM......60 X 60 X 2 = 7200 That's 60 cycles per sec X 60 cycles per second X 2 divided by poles . I love those old "chuffers" they just run forever/wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif You know, motor homes and travel trailers WOULD be great sources for generators. That's a GREAT idea!/wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif

CJDave
Quadra-Trac modified by the crack moonguy/wwwthreads_images/icons/wink.gif/wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif/wwwthreads_images/icons/tongue.gif transfer case team.

 

They are, coupled with a small homemade angle iron frame AND wheels rescued from a cart from the local Target store. Guy around here makes nice dollies from those cart wheels and they will hold quite a bit of weight. Later.

Booger /wwwthreads_images/icons/smile.gif

If a dog has no tail, how can you tell he's glad to see you?