Anybody know alot about these?

We bought an older motorhome and when it showed up the generator worked but was surging. The manual said replace the points. So Saturday I replaced the points and changed the oil and filters and plugs and it still surged. So I was messing with the throttle and the governer? rod and poof it stopped running. It will start now but only run in "start" and as soon as you let go of the start switch and it has to go to "run" mode for the coil it dies. I beleive I messed something control wise up when I was screwing with the governor rod and it's not making 110 where I beleive it would get electricity for the run mode. There was no smoke when it failed and no burning electrical component smell. Anybody have any ideas?????????????

Lance

I've played with a couple of Onan's & both problems ended up being the control circuit board ..... one was doing the same problem your experiencing
I hope I'm wrong ... their expensive an had to be ordered !!!

Yep from what I've found so far the circuit board is like $300. :(

sure beats the price of a new gen.

sure beats the price of a new gen.

Absolutely and it wouldn't bother me at all if I was sure that's what it was. It'd suck to throw money at it and still have the same symptoms though.....

lance .... they will be HAPPY to check it for you at Onan .... its like 175 dollars to tell you ..... :eek:

lance .... they will be HAPPY to check it for you at Onan .... its like 175 dollars to tell you ..... :eek:

What a deal :D

Mark,
Have you ever seen one of their factory service manuals? The one's they sell for like $30. Are they worth the money? How many pages are they? Do they have step by step diagnoses stuff in them?

Lance

yes the manual is quit good.... thats the route I took after I found out how much they wanted to trouble shoot the thing at Onan

yes the manual is quit good.... thats the route I took after I found out how much they wanted to trouble shoot the thing at Onan

Great thanks. I'll order one and go from there.

Lance
Go here and ask. Quite a few guys who worked on them.
http://www.woodalls.com/forums/index.cfm/fuseaction/listings/forum/39.cfm

Lance
Go here and ask. Quite a few guys who worked on them.
http://www.woodalls.com/forums/index.cfm/fuseaction/listings/forum/39.cfm


That's the best forum for Onan so far. Thanks for the link John. I ordered the service manual today. So I guess I'll be playing generator service tech this weekend again.

Lance

What model of Onan is it? I have a BFA, and it doesn't have a control card. My service manual covers BF, BFA, NH, and BGA if there's anything I can help you with.

Some models have a low oil pressure switch. It won't run when it looses oil pressure. Since you just changed oil and filter maybe it hasn't built oil pressure yet or the oil pressurre switch wire somehow got knocked off. Just a thought.

Mark

What model of Onan is it? I have a BFA, and it doesn't have a control card. My service manual covers BF, BFA, NH, and BGA if there's anything I can help you with.

It's a NHE type A
model number 6.5NHE-1R/26101 A
serial number B870871887
I have a service manual in the mail 2 day air so it'll be here by the weekend :) Mine definately has a card. I already took it out and looked at it for visible signs of damage and it "looks" good but ya never know with electronics. I also understand there's a "run" relay that might be the culprit. I have no idea where that's located......

Some models have a low oil pressure switch. It won't run when it looses oil pressure. Since you just changed oil and filter maybe it hasn't built oil pressure yet or the oil pressurre switch wire somehow got knocked off. Just a thought.

Mark

It ran fine after the oil change until I messed with it :( so I'm pretty sure it's not an oil pressure/level thing.

I've played with a couple of Onan's & both problems ended up being the control circuit board ..... one was doing the same problem your experiencing
I hope I'm wrong ... their expensive an had to be ordered !!!

Mark, You were right it was the control PC board. I found a good deal on a replacement board here... http://www.partsfortechs.com $140 for the board and they got it here in two days for $7.

The surging was just a dirty carburetor.

John, The Woodalls forum was really helpful. There's a guy on there called Generator Jim that had the answers for me.

Runs great now :).

Merry Christmas, Lance

Cool, next you might think about replacing your converter. In the 80s they weren't very good.

Great .... glade you got it up an running :thumbsup:

I have a 75kw Onan and it has to stay in start mode to run correctly.

Had the same problem a while back with an ONAN, would only run with the start button pushed in, let off it would die. I had to replace the Bridge Rectifier in the unit, was only $30.00 from ONAN, after that it was fine.

Also fuel level especially if in a motorhome plays a big part. When the main tank for the MH gets down to a certain level, fuel is stopped from going to the gen so that you don't run out of fuel in the MH while sitting.

I guess my comment sounded like I had the same problem but no , mine is an automatic start so it starts on demand and has to stay in start mode and the transfer switch starts and stops it.