Well I screwed up big time with small generator

Last night power went out so we decided to hook up the portable generator, 10K Generac, it came with my new wife about 25 years ago! Dumped a couple gallons of fresh gas in checked oil and fired it up. It ran great till we were going to bed. I went out and rolled it into the garage and shut it off. In the mean time wife went down to the breaker panel and filliped main breaker back on assuming the power would be back on when we got up. I believe power did finally come back on around 3 AM. After breakfast decided I'd roll the generator back to the barn we keep it in and maybe dump a couple gallons of gas in to be ready it power went out again. Well knew something was not right as soon as I opened the garage door. Very smoky and knew that I had made a major mistake. See when I shut down generator I never unplugged the 220 volt cord to the receptacle in the garage! After unplugging way to late I did hit the starter to see if it would even turn over. Well it did start but also was spitting a bunch of copper wire bits out of the vents on the generator! Did call the local Generac dealer and at least the guy was nice and did not tell me how dumb a thing I had done. So sometime Tuesday I'm going to be hauling it over to the dealer to see if there might be any repair possible. Sad thing is in the 25 years it has been here it has probably been used a dozen or maybe less times and other than a little dust on it it looks almost like new. All I would have needed to do was trip the breaker to the outlet or unplug the cord and nothing would have happened. Not even sure if repair parts are available for this old a genset from Generac.

This is why you never use suicide cords. Even people who should know what they are doing make mistakes sometimes. Parts will not be available and even if they were, far too expensive.

Birken Vogt said: This is why you never use suicide cords. Even people who should know what they are doing make mistakes sometimes. Parts will not be available and even if they were, far too expensive. Click to expand... I'm kind of thinking that will be the case but still want to see what the guy says in the morning. Would like to find someone who forgot to add oil and seized up their engine. Either to get parts to fix mine or find someone who will buy mine!

These things are purely disposable and parts did not stay the same year over year so chance of finding something similar is very low. Also it is a large unit which makes it a less popular model. And they did not sell that many portables back in that era so population is probably very small. Like trying to fix a Yugo, if it works run it, if it breaks onto something better

Would the engine be alright on a log spliter or some other stationary engine use around your home?

Glad to here I am not alone. I get most things used. Even have a used wife. Have had a couple of generator failures. Weld and gen. units. The engine failed on one and the gen on the other. Those engines had tapered crankshaft ends. They were older and the engine was not available for one and the armature for the other. If yours has a strait crankshaft you can use it for something.

Tenwheeler said: Glad to here I am not alone. I get most things used. Even have a used wife. Have had a couple of generator failures. Weld and gen. units. The engine failed on one and the gen on the other. Those engines had tapered crankshaft ends. They were older and the engine was not available for one and the armature for the other. If yours has a strait crankshaft you can use it for something. Click to expand... Well sofar from what I've read I'm thinking the end of crank is tapered for the generator mount. Also learned this morning that this generator despite all the marking on it saying Generac is just a renamed Briggs Generator. The local dealer had to contact Generac to find that out! Right now we are seriously thinking about getting a hardwired pad mounted propane fueled generator. As I'm getting close to 75 (April) thinking it might be the way to go. Because if I was down for a few days from something wife might not be able to drag out a portable generator and get it hooked up on a bad winter night. Guy is coming out first of the week to check out our house and land to give an estimate.

When we built our house a couple years ago I had the pad poured, gas line run and transfer switch installed. I stuck to my budget and was a tad shy of the $ to install the generator. I’ll probably get it done this year. I wanted something the wife didn’t have to touch if we had a failure. She works from home so it would be nice if we had some bad weather. In 2 years we’ve had maybe 4 hours without power but days without internet lol.

kshansen said: Well sofar from what I've read I'm thinking the end of crank is tapered for the generator mount. Also learned this morning that this generator despite all the marking on it saying Generac is just a renamed Briggs Generator. The local dealer had to contact Generac to find that out! Right now we are seriously thinking about getting a hardwired pad mounted propane fueled generator. As I'm getting close to 75 (April) thinking it might be the way to go. Because if I was down for a few days from something wife might not be able to drag out a portable generator and get it hooked up on a bad winter night. Guy is coming out first of the week to check out our house and land to give an estimate. Click to expand... Don't do it Hansen! Get a used light plant like I did. 7.5 KW diesel with a Kubota engine.

skyking1 said: Don't do it Hansen! Get a used light plant like I did. 7.5 KW diesel with a Kubota engine. Click to expand... Three freezers, two fridges, electric stove and hot water heat, 7500 watts is too light for us. When I do our standby, it's going to be a 16Kw liquid cooled. Plus, my FIL lives next door, I'm going to set it up so I can run his fridge/freezer/furnace as well.

I agree with both of the last 2 posts. 3 cyl light plant if it is all you need for power. Otherwise 4 cylinder 2 liter whatever if you have real loads that need to run. Unfortunately all the good 4 cylinder stuff is too spendy these days. But Hansen might know where to hunt, it only takes 1.

Birken Vogt said: I agree with both of the last 2 posts. 3 cyl light plant if it is all you need for power. Otherwise 4 cylinder 2 liter whatever if you have real loads that need to run. Unfortunately all the good 4 cylinder stuff is too spendy these days. But Hansen might know where to hunt, it only takes 1. Click to expand... FFS. I haven't looked in a couple years, when we got a 22k liquid cooled for the fire department like 5 years ago, the generator was $7000. Apparently now they're $11k.

Yeah I paid under $4k for my 20k towable about 10 years ago. Seller had it for 6 and I let him stew a while until he finally caved. After the hurricane in Puerto Rico, then PG&E in California shuts down power for safety, then COVID all generators new and old nation/world wide were clear sold out for years. It is starting back down but sellers don't want to budge yet and might not for a long time.

I have a Miller 325EFI welder that is 12000 watts intermittent and 10000watts continuous for my back up. Put welder on wheels to roll in and out of shop when needed. Put it outside of shop for when welding jobs are needed. Have more than one use, and very reliable and service is available as lots of repair places for these kind of units. Not for use of natural gas, but have not needed for power out yet in 9 years. This was my solution to generator need for backup.

skyking1 said: Don't do it Hansen! Get a used light plant like I did. 7.5 KW diesel with a Kubota engine. Click to expand... Those little Kubotas will run forever too.

Shimmy1 said: Three freezers, two fridges, electric stove and hot water heat, 7500 watts is too light for us. When I do our standby, it's going to be a 16Kw liquid cooled. Plus, my FIL lives next door, I'm going to set it up so I can run his fridge/freezer/furnace as well. Click to expand... my 2000 Honda Will run 3 freezers and two fridges. It does not come off eco idle with a fridge and freezer. The other big stuff I can select/live without.

The issue we have is we need 240v for the well pump. Everything else will work of the 2000w Honda inverter. Just shuffle the cords for fridge and freezers.

This is something that doesn’t happen here, at least I’ve never heard of anyone doing it. We usually leave a generator plugged in all the time, a transfer switch isolates whichever power source is not being used. Only takes a sparky about 20 minutes to install one. We still call it a suicide switch though.

Why did it melt? Genuinely curious. Did it turn into a motor when power was fed back into it?

Cliffy said: Why did it melt? Genuinely curious. Did it turn into a motor when power was fed back into it? Click to expand... That is what I'm guessing. Not being a knowledgeable person on electric side of this old genset that seems about right.