Generator Maintenance

 

Generator Maintenance

by rdpecken on Mar.20, 2011, under Ranch Maintenance

It’s Spring again, and time to get ready for a new year at the Ranch.  According to Honda, it's necessary to change the oil every 8 hours of operation.  That seems a little excessive to me, so I change the oil once a year, whether my generator needs it or not!

The main problem with the EU2000 generator is that it doesn’t have a drain plug for the oil.  So in the past I have tried basically dumping the oil out of the fill tube.  That gets pretty messy.  You can see that the generator gets pretty dirty after a year of operation in the dust and dirt of Northern Arizona.

Oil Fill Tube

So this year, I got a tool from Harbor Freight to suck the oil out of the fill tube.

oil changing tool

In order to get better access to the oil, I tilted up the front end, to make the oil pool in the back.

Gernerator Tilted

Then I inserted the tool and pulled on the handle.  After each pull, I discharged the old oil into a container.  It took about 6 tries to get almost all of the old oil out.  About 5 minutes.

Pulling the old oil out

When I was done with the oil change,  I cleaned the internals a bit.  I didn’t work too hard at it, as I know it will just get dirty again, but this should keep it from building up too much.

Cleaner Generator

After filling it back up (about 1/2 quart), it is ready to go for another year.

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