MEP-803A backwards wiring on load gauge?

Just finally went through my personal MEP-803a unit for hurricane season. It's been a busy year so far, and I've been in a "cobbler with no shoes" scenario until now after adding my generator inlet box and panel interlock system. Might as well get it done while there's a hurricane out in the Atlantic.

It's a 1999 Fermont MEP-803A unit bought in January on GovPlanet from MCB Albany with 9730 hours, has a IROAN tag showing rework at 9720 hours, unit appears RESET as well in regards to condition of the unit itself.

I did the ultimate well nut replacement, fuse mod, and replaced the aux pump with an airtex unit (had to replace lines with fuel hose - I used the same pump as main lift pump... This was planned so in the event of a main pump failure I can cannibalize the aux pump and get back into service and refill fuel via 5 gallon jugs).

I Also replaced all of the nuts with Rivnuts and Torx head stainless fasteners and washers FROM Amazon on the top cover and fuel cell cover.

Unfortunately, I also broke off one of my neutral bonding terminals, it's not a big deal as it's going to go to my house and I've bonded the neutral to ground (and attached to ground rod as well, and generator being grounded to the rod as well) on my load bank. Anybody got one they're parting out?

I was having issues with the load gauge being inop and the unit not being able to hold more than 2Kw for more than 5 minutes before tripping an overload fault. It got so bad that I would just exercise the unit with no load when cutting my lawn that the unit was starting to wet stack and puke from the muffler to exhaust joint.

I removed the top and cleaned S8, S6 (and S1 for good measure while I was in there) with Deoxit More importantly, I found the wires going to the gauge were reversed. Made them right in regards to the wiring diagrams.

Got to a load test today, and it pulled 13KW no problem for as long as possible, outside of my load test circuit breakers popping (I've realized now I installed too small of breakers on my load bank box now, especially considering the wiring gauge I used, #6. Load bank is 2ea 5400W dryer elements on 30A breakers, 1 2700W element on a 15A breaker), as well as burning the exhaust system out.

Gauge works as it should now, and I'm confused.

Was my ultimate fix cleaning and working the S6, S8 combo, or was it switching the wires on the gauge? Inquiring minds want to know for troubleshooting future reference. I didn't think that internal overload protection of the units ran through the ammeter.

Switching the wires on the gauge had nothing to do with the unit tripping out. Cleaning the switches is a common fix for early tripping.

Agreed, the gauge wires do not matter. Cleaning S8 fixes problems like this 99% of the time.

It's just wild I went from 2kw to over 12kw with that Deoxit alone.

Not weird when you look at the schematic and see that the load signals go through those switches. Glad you got it up and going.

It's there a method to do away with s8 all together? Most of us use these for backup, so why not come in with a permanent solution?

One could change the wiring to bypass both S6 & S8 all together as far as the Load sensing is concerned.
This would eliminate overloads caused by poor contacts in S6 & S8.
Assume you are running 240 Single Phase it looks like adding 3 jumpers across terminals on S6 would do the trick.
Would need to leave S6 setting alone when the jumpers are installed.

I would use a terminal board. Easyer, takes up less room.

Thanks for all of the input all; I'm going to keep the current configuration of S6 and S8 currently, but it would be an interesting project for somebody to make it a permanent 240 / 1 Ph unit. May have to revisit this if these components fry out.