I have an Onan 5500 in my 5th wheel. It has over 500 hours. Is that alot? What preventative maintenance cycle should I consider? I know the manual probably has some of the info Im looking for but its in the trailer. Looking for experienced answers, not book answers. Thanks in advance.

 

I had a Miller Bobcat welder with the Onan engine in it that had over 3000 hours on it when I sold it. The generator part wasn't Onan but I think Onan makes some good stuff.

 

Is it gas or diesel? Who makes the engine? Small Kubota diesel engines that are taken care of can go over 10,000 hours.

 

Gas, and the engine was made by Onan.

 

Oil and filter every 50 hours and it will last for for thousands of hours.

 

50? Holy crap, I'm doing my welder and all the generators at 100 hours and thought that was enough. Never realized 50 was the magic number! I'll be shutting generators down in the middle of power outages now to change the oil!

Thanks Tim!

 

We use to have Onan gen sets at remote telephone sites, they ran on propane some had over 5k hours on them, they were serviced often. they eventually went to diesel.

 

You can 200+ hour service intervals on propane. Propane has the lowest byproducts of combustion impact on engine oil.

 

ya my owners manual says 50 hrs. I thought that was early too buy what the heck its only 2qts oil.

 

Mine is gas. Do I have to remove it from the trailer to service? Im a rookie, gotta ask.

 

Depends on how it is mounted? do you have access to the drain plug and filter and will a catch pan fit under it? You may have to remove a panel or two to get access to the service area's.

 

I just bought a new Bobcat 250 (30HP FI Kohler) the recommended oil change interval is 100hrs. The Hr meter gives you the running time & next service due at start-up.

Remote drain and filter mounts are available(or can be made) for most gen sets or welders

 

It's hard for me to comprehend 500 hours in an RV application since that would be like 1500 camping days' usage for me.

I had wondered what service life would be if well maintained though.

 

most large gen sets are 250 hours and around ten to thirteen quarts of oil as you get smaller gen sets then quantity of oil gets smaller and so does the change intervals for a small onan 50 to 75 so its like each weekend run all weekend change .if you go wth
Mobil one or other synthetic you can go longer say 100 to 110 hrs (five days )
but watch the levels as they do burn a bit and it is really pushing that oils time they also use it as a cooling medium as well lubrication change the filter every other time note some gen sets don't have filters or oil pumps they use Splash lubrication which is why the 50 hr mark is specified and very important oners manuals can be found on line .

 

I have a Robin-Subaru 3500 watt generator that I use with my 5th wheel. It has about 800 hours on it. I was told to change the oil at 50 hours. I also read on Bob is the Oil Guy to use diesel rated oil in small engines due to the more robust additive package. I use 5-40 diesel rated Amsoil. The guy that wrote the article rented out generators during Katrina. They were run 24/7. He said he had no oil related failures. He said lots of other generators fried as small engines run hot.