Small Diesel Generator

I have some 12" H beam pieces left over from the roof of the house, I could set it on some of those. It quit running and after lots of investigation I found out that the fuel pumps are bad. It has a big tank underneath and a small tank on top, it pumps fuel out of the big tank up to the small tank the gravity feeds down to the injection pump. Apparently the guys I bought it from just filled the small tank on top with fuel for demonstration proposes and failed to mention the bad pumps. I tapped the pumps with a hammer and one came to life and filled the upper tank. One of the fuel filters is plugged so I am going to change all the oil and filters tonight and see if I can get it going again. It is interesting that a 6 cylinder diesel like that only makes 63 hp, It will probably last forever.

 

I like to put my filters before the pumps (suction side), the pumps last longer.

 

I took the two pumps apart on this thing and they have filters in them
I cleaned the filters and repaired a wire on one and they are back in business. I changed the oil on it and got it running. Tomorrow I need to rewire it for single phase, right now it is 3 phase.

 

3 Tractors, 2 john Deer's a 903, and a 4300 series with front loader..and a Farm All (1963)

generator.. I have the beast...



150KV Perkins diesel... 1.3 GHP at 32% capacity...

Who needs a little generator, I can power the block...

 

I got the generator rewired for single phase power last night about 10pm. Hooked it up to the house and let it rock. The most we ever pull is 2000w, that is charging the batteries, running the water heater and air conditioner. You can see the load meter just slightly flinch when I connect the house. This sucker is loud though, I could hardly hear my Onan 5cck run when I was down at the barn. I drove down to the barn last night and you can hear this thing very clearly, it sounds like one of the neighbors is mowing hay.

 

I will see what I can find.

 

About the only reason I fire up a bigger generator is to run stuff that can't run on any thing smaller .
The smallest generating system have is a 5hp Honda driving a marine alternator for charging the battery system if solar and wind is struggling .
The same engine drives an air compressor, which can be converted by valves to a vacuum pump .

There is also a 2 hp 120vac motor for running the air compressor, in either "stop start" or "constant speed" operations. I have a secondary electric air compressor for every day use, but i fire them both up when I'm doing sand blasting.
Though my diesel generator is capable of running my smaller air compressors it is usually a bad idea for the amperage it requires, so having gas engine driven air compressors is a must if electric power is an issue .
the engine works nice for warming up the shop in the winter time , and the exhaust seems to work just fine so far .

 

I would like to find a small diesel engine to run a 24v alternator at some point.

 

Sorry, I should have clarified. I would like something small like @arleigh has to charge our house batteries when there is no sun. We power our house with a 24v inverter. Right now I'm using a mep-005a to charge the batteries which is gross overkill. Some sort of small diesel I could run at low RPM would be nice to use and I could keep the mep beast as a backup.

 

You might look in military surplus . A friend got a pair of one cylinder diesel water pumps ,I built a hand crank for starting them.
WWGranger sold a YanMar diesel engine but they are pricy . no one want's to let go of them especially now that the survival craze its developed.
Seems to me that if you had a high out put 12 volt alternator, It should have the ability to charge 24 volt just changing the voltage regulator . check with a good auto parts store NAPA may be .
All charging is is rising the voltage higher than the battery voltage by a little or a lot.

 

Well, I finally found an Onan DJA locally from an old caboose for $500. I can't wait to get it going. The guy I bought it from was a ham operator also which was pretty cool.

 

That is what is missing on my titan 6500 watt diesel gen, mine is a manual lever for decompression . A real pain . but it is both rope start and electric start .

 

I'm planning to get a PTO generator to hang on my John Deere 830 diesel tractor. If I get a gas tractor I could use it on that as well, plus I can use the tractors to farm.