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Yes. Especially if ran in heat and for extended run times. I would say every 20 hrs.
I don't have a generator, but I change the oil on my lawnmower every 2 months in the mowing season.
What Weight Oil Do You Run In Your Generators ?
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I don't have a generator, but I change the oil on my lawnmower every 2 months in the mowing season.
see post 39.
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the manual says every 50 hours for most machines. I would feel more comfortable changing it earlier. Everyone can make their own decision on when to change and what oil to use. People will use whatever makes them feel good.
I'm sure they're people that don't change their oil in their OPE. I know someone who didn't change the oil for 15 years in their pressure washer.
Predator 4375 - broken in on pyb 5w30 and ace hardware 10w30. After break in I switched to fram full syn hm 10w30.
I agree with this. With air cooled engines running in high heat conditions, a high quality synthetic, heavier viscosity oil, along with more frequent oil changes will help in prolonging the service life of most any small gas engine under these conditions. Remember, most all of these engines have under a 1 quart capacity. (Or only slightly more). And no oil filtration system of any kind.
Small ones are air cooled, only hold about a quart or less of oil. And may run 24hrs or more continuously under load.
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Have a Black Max generator with a Honda that gets 10/30 syn and a Coleman with a Briggs that gets 30 wt conventional which starts second pull in 20 degree temps. What is important is to use fresh 89 octane fuel.
What weight? About 7.2 lbs per gallon.
Per SAE J300 a 15w-40 will have a higher HTHS viscosity than a a 5w-40, and more so over a 10w-30. For the moment I have 5w-40 RT6 in my generators. Should I ever be faced with an extended outage of 3+ days with temperatures above 90 F then I would not hesitate to use 15w-40.
Generators usually have only a small amount of oil and most do not have oil filters. The only way to get contaminates out is to change the oil. Also, a generator typically runs at a high RPM and is usually abused with the amount of load put on them for a long duration of time, especially in high ambient heat (summer time). Being air-cooled, the engines run hotter and tend to be hard on the oil.
Thanks.
Do you have any evidence that you have a shearing issue now to be concerned about?
Gensets aren't typically quad cam high specific output DOCH utilizing feet of timing chains that shear oil heavily.
Often times narrowing the spread ends up degrading the base oil, with the highest base oil level being the "0W" variant.
Are you sure that isn't the case in your choice?
Id be interested to see if you ran some UOA's
I ran some on my Onan 8000 running off the shelf 0W-40 and it was fantastic showing I could go for far longer than the recommended 150 hours, holding up just fin e in an oil known for shearing.
Neither my 20KW Kohler, or any other gensets recommend increasing the W rating in hot temps.
"most" portables do not run a pressurized system.
"most" home backup and larger RV gensets do.
Ive seen no evidence any habitually need anything more than their manufacturers recommend, and seen plenty including my own UOA's to say they can go at least that far and in some cases much longer.
Poeple =" feel" they should do it sooner based on ambient air temps and load, and I understand that, and have done it myself,
- but did I "need" to? Probably not.
One reason I can think of is the don't have an oil filter. But on the other hand most residentialy used lawn mowers don't have an oil filter either. And for the most part they never get their oil changed. I guess it depends on how important it is to have it running, especially if it needs to support equipment that keeps people alive somehow.,,,
Usually 5 or 10w30 Mobil 1
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