I just cleaned up Neelix’s litter box area and, as usual, my beloved pig, er cat, had spread the litter all around. Since the shore power cable was still hooked up to the genset I decided to see if my generator still works so that I could vacuum up the mess, rather than use the inverter for power.
Since the genny was cold, it refused to catch using the remote starter. I went outside, closed the choke, and it started immediately. Woohoo! Now that the exhaust is fixed, it’s actually rather quiet and the vibrations aren’t too bad.
Vacuuming done, I just shut down the genny from inside. What a luxury!
I am going to really enjoy using my new-old toy. 🙂
The only too bad thing about the genny is that the hour metre doesn’t work. L let me troubleshoot it yesterday until I needed some technical help cleaning terminals and making new connections, but we’re at the limit of his knowledge.
I know there is a bad connection and on which wire, but we couldn’t find the source in the rat’s nest of wires behind the starter. I pulled on one connector and the positive lead for the remote starter disintegrated, which really discouraged us from further poking around. In the grand scheme of things, not having the hour metre isn’t a huge deal.
Ours doesn’t have an hour meter either. I just write down on a small notebook the date and when we start and stop it. Right now we need to change the oil since I saw a video that said 50 hours….we ran it 30+ last trip to the beach. I need to keep better track of oil change times because I know we are way past 50. For some reason I had 100 hours in my head.
The power of pencil & paper technology
How expensive would a new choke be? Is it something you could install yourself?
L says there is a solenoid powering the choke and that’s what’s probably bad. I don’t see myself doing anything with it since the genny starts up right away from outside if I close the choke manually, which is really not much o an extra step.
Think of doing it in a raging storm on the Gulf Coast with sand and rain blowing in when you open the door! And what with you being an expert on solenoids and all… 😉
With my current setup, I’d have to go outside anyway to unplug from the inverter and plug into the genny, which is way more difficult than starting the dang thing! 🙂
Expert in solenoids?! I’m good at the whole batting my eyelashes and swishing my skirt thing to get a discount, as well as buying and chilling cold beer for my workers, but that’s the limit of my knowledge! 😀
Oh yes, I forgot about that changing the plug thing. I have the same setup as you but do not plug my whole house into the inverter. Mine is wired to a power bar inside so we leave the RV plugged into the generator between full hookups. A push of the button fires up the genny and makes coffee!
I like having the whole rig plugged into the inverter as it makes all but one of my outlets live. Very convenient.
What an expensive cup of coffee! 😀