Five MEP-802a Projects

[DorkFish83]

I won five MEP-802a's from Fort Campbell on GL a couple weeks ago, and just finally got them hauled home Monday afternoon. Two 1994 Libby's, two 1995 Libby's and a 2000 Fermont. All flappers intact and no water in any of them from what I can see. All look pretty clean and are complete. 3 even have newer Optima batteries and still had enough charge to run the fuel pumps when switched on. Hopefully I'll get lucky and have not much major work needed.

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[Daybreak]

Howdy,

The best thing you can do for the batteries .... remove them, and charge them with a AGM specific charger individually. They will come back to life.

I see you found my filter etc thread. Take a look at the second post in the thread. A lot of stuff you will come up against.
I corrected the Baldwin filter number too.

Good luck with your 5 units.

 

[DorkFish83]

Howdy,

The best thing you can do for the batteries .... remove them, and charge them with a AGM specific charger individually. They will come back to life.

The first one I tore into today has Optimas and amazingly they were still almost fully charged. Filled it with coolant, oil and a couple gallons of diesel and let the fuel pump run for a while and it cranked right up without any issues. I let it run for a couple minutes before I put a load on it and everything seemed OK. After running it with a 3500 watt load for a few minutes, it slowed down and acted like it was starving for fuel and then stopped and wouldn't restart.

After letting the fuel pump cycle for a while then cranking on it a few times, it finally started back up and ran for another 30-40 seconds before starving out again. It repeated this behavior 2-3 times so I'm guessing either the filters are clogged, the fuel pump is weak, or its sucking air somewhere. I have all new Baldwin filters on order from Grainger, so if that doesn't fix the problem, I'll have to dig deeper into it this weekend.

-Tony

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[Guyfang]

Tony, sounds like you on top of it. Toss in some carb cleaner, first tank of fuel you use. I would also clean the fuel pumps with carb cleaner separately. Its rare that the fuel pumps get weak. Mostly, they work, or don't. Have you worked on 802's before?

 

[DorkFish83]

Tony, sounds like you on top of it. Toss in some carb cleaner, first tank of fuel you use. I would also clean the fuel pumps with carb cleaner separately. Its rare that the fuel pumps get weak. Mostly, they work, or don't. Have you worked on 802's before?

I don't have any experience with MEP's specifically, but am very familiar with diesels and have worked on a couple similar Lister engines in the past. I have read through a lot of the tech manuals for the 802's to get an idea of what I'm dealing with, and this forum has also been a big help with the basics.

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[jamawieb]

The 802a's are not an easy generator to work on for a beginner, so good luck. I got a couple of 802a's out of the same auction, unfortunately one had a grounding incident which caused the ground wire from the main lug to fry and ruin a bunch or wires in the control cubicle behind the gauges.

 

[Guyfang]

Check if the part number is the same for the 60 and 400 hertz models. If so, I think Daybreak, (Mike) has one or two complete control cubicles for 400 hertz models.

Even if they are not the same, I often pulled wires and canon plug pins out of 400 hertz wire harness, to insert into 60 hertz wire harness, when I had the same problem.

 

[DorkFish83]

Well I changed out the fuel filters today, and GOOD LORD whoever installed that spin-on filter needs to have their teeth knocked out! I had to take the top and side panel off to be able to get a grip on it with my filter pliers. I also found the inlet fitting on the fuel pump wasn't all the way tight, so that was probably what my problem was. I went through and made sure all the other fuel system fittings were tight.

Fired it up and ran it with a 5700 watt load to let it burn all the crap out of the exhaust. It must have been wet-stacked, but not very bad because it cleared up after 45 minutes or so. Looks like the only gauge that doesn't work is the load percentage gauge - it stayed at zero for the most part, but bounced all over the place every now and then.

After running for a little over an hour, the NO FUEL light came on and the set shut down. Fuel gauge is reading a little over half full. Tried resetting it a few times but couldn't get it to clear out. Stuck my hand in the filler and found both floats on the S shaped sending unit. They both move up and down freely, so I'm not sure what the issue is. I really don't want to have to tear the back panels off now, but looks like I may have to. How do these floats register with the sending unit?

-Tony

 

[Guyfang]

Tony,

Get the parts manual, TM 9-6115-641-24P or the TM 9-6115-641-12, operator's manual and look at the exploded pictures. Read up on how they work and how to test them. It may be a simple matter of readjustment. There is several threads that work this problem. Daybreak has one or two that describe it very well. And it might not be a matter of the float switch being the problem. You may have sucked up trash in the fuel tank.

The spin on filter has been always a PITA. After cutting my hand several times, breaking a strap wrench once and using words not allowed here or in church, I always took of the top and side panel to replace the filter. If it wont come off first try, then you are wasting time trying to get it out, without taking it apart. .

 

[DorkFish83]

Well, another one of them lives. New oil, filter, coolant, a couple gallons of diesel, charged the Optimas for about an hour and it fired right up. This one only has 126 hours on the meter and as far as I can tell, hasn't been reset. Load tested it at 6500w for a couple hours and all seems good. This one wasn't wet stacked at all, looks like.

-Tony

 

[DorkFish83]

Well, the second unit apparently has a leaky well-nut, as I came out to the garage yesterday morning to see that it took a whiz all over the floor. Guess that will go in the list of things to do. Got a third one up and going yesterday and and let her run for a couple hours with a 6500 watt load and never missed a beat. No fuel on the floor with this one, thankfully.

Then I went back to the first one I got running that has the constant NO FUEL error. Tore the back panel off, unplugged the low fuel sensor, and it will start and run normally without issue, so that eliminates everything other than the sending unit. Took the sender out and ohm'd it: looks like the top float sensor is operational (circuit open when the float is up, circuit closed when it is down) but the bottom one is in a constantly closed state no matter what position the float is in, thus creating the erroneous low fuel condition. So unless there's some way to fix these things it looks like I'll be ordering a new one.

Edit: I was able to fix it by moving the top snap ring up about 1/4”. $40 saved

 

[Guyfang]

I have taken apart the FL-1 and F-2 fuel floats. Not much to them. And in the old days, even fixed one or two, long enough to get me through until a new one came in on requisition. But normally the contacts are welded together. So its wasted work. Before you say its fixed, you need to run it a while! Then you can feel safe saying it's fixed.

 

[DorkFish83]

I have taken apart the FL-1 and F-2 fuel floats. Not much to them. And in the old days, even fixed one or two, long enough to get me through until a new one came in on requisition. But normally the contacts are welded together. So its wasted work. Before you say its fixed, you need to run it a while! Then you can feel safe saying it's fixed.

I took the bottom float off and the circuit opened, so got to looking at the float compared to others and the top snap ring on that bottom float looked like it was a lot lower down than in the pictures of others I've seen.

Moving it up seems to have fixed it. I put a gallon of fuel in it and let it run for a couple hours and the float shut it down like it's supposed to. Filled it back up and it fired back up.

I'll have to give it a good 3-4 hour load test this weekend and see how it fares.

-Tony

 

[DorkFish83]

Update: looks like I got extremely lucky with this batch of generators. Just fired up and load tested the last one yesterday and not a single engine or gen head problem with any of them. Three of them came with Optima yellow-top batteries that were in great shape, The other two had the 2HN batteries that were dead as a rock, so they got replaced. So other than the two sets with bad batteries, the only problems are one set with a leaky well-nut that I have been putting off, and this last one with a rusted/stuck throttle cable and a defective current meter. Oh and the first one I got running had the quirky fuel float issue but that one turned out OK after adjustment and a long test run. I'd say it was a good learning experience and the one unit I keep for myself will definitely be around for a long time to come.