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Generator kept running
As we left the Soaring Eagle Casino in Mt Pleasant, MI where we had been dry camping overnight (and Miss Barbie draining the casino’s bank account), I turned off the generator. All the indicator lights went out as usual and the temperature gauge dropped to zero.
A short distance down the road something smelled funny and we took the opportunity to pull into a Flying J to dump our holding tank and take a look around.
HOLY COW!!….the generator was still running but the cooling blower wasn’t! I got the generator to stop by pinching off the fuel line. The fuel supply shutoff solenoid had not operated to shut off the engine allowing it to run on without the cooling fan.
The non contact temperature gun showed the coolant temperature at 220 degrees and coolant starting to flow out the filler cap. No damage to the engine, thank goodness, but a pretty good scare nontheless.
Monday morning we will find a new solenoid for sure but it will be a while before I trust it when shutting off the generator.
Has anyone else ever had this happen?
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4 Replies
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Must be a testament to Libery’s hush box that you can not hear it run. I can hear mine just enough to know if it is running or not. I also can usually feel a very slight vibration when I start or stop it. I guess I will have to make sure I pay attention to mine to make sure I don’t have an issue like you did. I have no gauges inside the bus for mine, only in the generator bay itself.
Good info to have for any conversion.
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Chuck,
Obviously if the fuel solenoid failed open, problem solved. but if that is not the problem whatever is causing the problem has to be identified, but more importantly the real problem needs to be shared with Liberty and as many Liberty owners as possible. We cannot afford to shut down generator cooling while it runs. It almost sounds as though your safety shut down did not work, but maybe the temerature for shut down is above what yours reached.
Not knowing you generator control system prevents those that might have the same issue from being on alert (as in do you have the Watchdog?) so I suggest all of us verify our generators have shut down. I always anticipate that vibration as the generator goes from running speed to stopped. It’s kind of seat of the pants flying, but I can know it has quit running.
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Ours will kind of shudder before it shuts down. It did it one time, and it was the on/off switch in the compartment, stuck. After shutting it down, took some compressed air and sprayed it generously inside the switch, cleaned it out.
BCO
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Mark you’re right, the Liberty hush box is impressive but I can still feel the little shudder as the generator shuts down. I have to confess that I forgot to turn off the generator until after we were moving and didn’t pay much attention to it. The generator has worked flawlessly despite all the abuse and long hours we use it. I have lulled myself into a bit of complacency….only my fault there.
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As a follow up to my original post, I contacted Paul, Service Mgr at the Martin Diesel Generator shop in Defiance, OH, the builders.Paul listened to my recounting of events and simply said, “loose connection”. Sooo, before buying any parts I set about going through the control box and all external connections I could find. The only loose connection found was one of the two main connectors that plug into the side of the control box. Apparently it worked loose and failed just enough to not give the shutdown solenoid a signal even though the fan shut down circuit worked.
Since then, I have run the generator for varying lengths of time and performed shutdowns and restarts cannot seem to duplicate the original problem. I hope it is fixed.
The good side of the story is that I have now changed the oil, filters and replaced the coolant and fan belt.
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