Generator Failure

Team PCBeach

Active Member
Oct 12, 2010
183
Boat Info
360 Sundancer 2003, SIMRAD 3G Radar, Raymarine Autopilot
Engines
Twin 8.1L Horizon
2003 360DA with 7.3 Kohler gas generator. Generator would not start, opened sound enclosure and the pan was filled with gas. Turned out the bottom of the carburetor had fallen off and sprayed fuel inside enclosure. Had marina make repair and all was good on next outing. Two weeks later start the generator and no electrical output. Shutdown, try restart but as soon as it starts and I take my hand off the start button the generator shuts down. Marina checks again and says the backend is bad. My guess is from all the fuel spraying on electrical components.

I am trying to get the Kohler certified guys to come give me a second opinion, but everyone in the marine industry here is still booked weeks out doing repairs from Hurricane Michael a year ago.

Marina has given two options - new generator $14K or new backend $8K. Both big bills to swallow, but tying to get peoples thoughts on putting a new backend on a 16 year old front end. Not sure this is the best long term solution.

Also does anyone have a guess if a failure like this might be covered by my insurance. I am going to give them a call, but just trying to see if anyone has had similar type failures covered by insurance.
 
Not trying to be harsh, but think about this for a minute. Do you really want to tell your insurance company that by your inattention you nearly turned your boat (and you/family) into a fireball?

Now would leaking gas cause the backend to go bad? Doubtful. However, could a mechanic repairing the carburetor disturb a connection? Possibly, but more likely this is another indication the gen is in need of replacement.

However, in more than fifty years of car and boat ownership I have never had a carburetor fall off of one of my engines, and I owned some real marginal vehicles as a student. So maybe the universe is telling you to get a new gen. My take is 8k is more than half the cost of new. If the engine goes bad in the next year you’ll be back right here, and down 8k that you will be hard pressed to recoup.

As an FYI when I worked in ocean shipping we gave the 18 kw gen sets used for powering reefer containers a twelve year service life. You have gotten 16 out of yours.

H
 
That is not the symptom of a bad backend. The prices you have been quoted are extremely high. Insurance won't touch this. There are three sensors on the motor that will cause what you are describing. Check the waterflow (impeller), coolant and oil levels. Those three are far more common. Bad backend, you either get no power but motor runs or you won't run at all. If you do need a new genset a member here, Dave Lowrey in Jax has remanned kohlers for less than 5 grand. But you shouldn't need one from what you described...
 
We have a bunch of members in the panhandle on this forum, can someone please recommend a mobile service guy that can come and fix this for TeamPC Beach? Sounds like the marina is just like mine, "something is wrong, oh yeah, need to replace the whole thing." From what you are describing you need a service call max.
 
See if there is a troubleshooting guide. I had issues with mine this year and spent a fair amount of time sorting it out, but generally speaking, there are a lot of cheap things to diagnose and try before throwing a new generator at it.

Only think I needed was a good tool box, a good multimeter and a lot of help from some talented people on this site.

Dig into it and pay yourself the $125/hr to fix this stuff.
 
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Our RV Onan gen. (7.5) bit the dust a couple of years ago on the power generating end. The RV shop sent it out to Onan/Cummings repair facility & it was $3k. I was looking at a brand new one for $6k... I went with the repair as I knew I was selling the RV soon.
 
I have been a customer of the marina TeamPCBeach is working with for years. They are the best in the area but expensive. It is also a "closed" marina meaning that all outside work must be done either by the owner or thru the marina. The reason for that, besides the added mark-up, is that the outside contractor must have liability insurance to protect the boat owners and the marina, the marina handle all billing so the boat owner isn't faced with paying a big deposit then having the mechanic disappear or fail to finish the work in a quality manner.

My advice here is to negotiate.........you are very close to the fall/winter lull in service business and I've gotten some very good prices from the service department when the managers were faced with finding something for the mechanics to do besides sweeping the shop floor.

I would be leaning toward a new generator because you don't know what care and maintenance your generator has had before you bought the boat last year. you get a huge warranty upgrade with new over remanned back-ends as well, Also, I suspect the labor component for replacing the generator is a guess and it may not be as high as they estimated. The marina has very little experience with 360DA's because that cannot lift and store one inside. Their management never tried to sell them for that reason....the 360 buyer was usually a move up from a 30-34 ft Sundancer that could be stopped in the barn so the move up to a 360 meant a wet slip, bottom jobs, diver's services and year round detailing.

Good luck with it..........whatever you decide.
 
I have been a customer of the marina TeamPCBeach is working with for years. They are the best in the area but expensive. It is also a "closed" marina meaning that all outside work must be done either by the owner or thru the marina. The reason for that, besides the added mark-up, is that the outside contractor must have liability insurance to protect the boat owners and the marina, the marina handle all billing so the boat owner isn't faced with paying a big deposit then having the mechanic disappear or fail to finish the work in a quality manner.

It's a boat. Find another tech who works through another marina and boat on over to drop it off. You don't have to be hostage to your marinas service department if alternatives exist in your boating area.
 
Frank, as always, thanks for the info. I would still recommend that he have someone look at before I spent that kind of money. There are other marinas that people are willing to come to for service. This shouldn't be too hard. If he holds in the start button and it continues to run, that is not a bad a back end.
 
For those of you who recommend that the OP take his boat to another marina, do you remember that we are where a CAT 5 hurricane hit last October ? 4 out of 7 of our local marinas were completely destroyed and have not been rebuilt. The service department at his marina also contracts the service work at the remaining marinas that did survive but lost their mechanics because they had no place to live after the hurricane destroyed most local blue collar housing. Also, there is the space problem...... if he can find a mechanic at a marina willing to work on his boat, there are no slips here. The nearest available slip is in Gulf Shores Al nearly 100 miles away.

It isn’t a great situation but his boat is at the best service department in NW Fla. I think the best approach is to work on negotiating a price he can live with rather than hiring an unknown mechanic with unknown skills and reputation to solve an expensive problem.

The other approach is to buy a generator and change it out himself. The warranty on the new generator would then be a question.
 
Have a buddy come over and bypass water, oil, fuel sensors one at a time. If engine runs...problem for engine found. As far as generating electricity, let's handle that problem once engine is running. My Westerbeke is 18 years old with thousands of hours. I have replaced the backend once for rebuild. Best money I have spent.
 
Thanks to all for your suggestions. I will double check oil and coolant. I am trying to get the local authorized Kohler Marine service to come do a service call. As Frank stated, this is easier than it sounds when your area has been decimated by a CAT 5 hurricane. I have called this company 5 times and visited them once in the last 4 weeks. This is just to get on their schedule as I am told they are booked 3 weeks to 3 months out. The head guy that does all the scheduling is always out working a boat and he is the only one that can schedule me. My guess is they are so busy with their regular commercial customer they really don't want to take on my generator. Frustrating to say the least.

My canvas was destroyed in the hurricane. I put down a deposit in February to have a full enclosure done. At this point only the top and front are finished, I am still waiting on the back glass to be done. The couple of canvas shops that were left after the storm are booked up to 2 years out! My canvas guy is overwhelmed by the number of people seeking new canvas. It is just him and his son and he is not setup to handle this volume of calls, estimates and work all at one time. He stopped taking new work in July as he was booked so far out and couldn't get anything done with the number of estimates that he was being asked to do. This is a common story, especially small family construction businesses.

There is just no getting anything done quickly due to the number of service industry people that left. Over 30% of the population in the county has left. Remember we had no power for 3-4 weeks. That meant many people living paycheck to paycheck didn't get paid since they didn't work. 1 week with no pay is tough, 2 weeks and things get bad, 3 weeks and you can't pay rent, power car payment so you move to someplace with work.

Add on this all public marinas/docks were/are destroyed and there is no place to even take your boat if you want someone to come work on it that doesn't meet our marinas qualifications (licensed, $1 million insurance, etc).

At least Frank and I still have boats. After the storm I was taking debris to the landfill and next to the landfill they had setup a staging area for boats that had been salvaged. This staging area was the size of 2 football fields and was full with yachts and sailboats of all sizes.
 
And the additional complication is space. Here is the generator in my 360. I am 6' 4", 260, please tell me a good way to fit in that space. I spent 3 hours yesterday replacing my HVAC Circulation pump on my knees between the two engines. I have to slide into the bilge from the front sideways then turn to face forward. My hips hit both engines and every time I go to climb out my shirt catches every hose clamp end. Luckily it was cool yesterday and the heat index was only 97 degrees.
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Bringing this thread to closure. Turns out my generator back end was bad. After removing the generator from the boat, I took it to Jacksonville on the advice of @Cocktail Time , who pointed me to a guy that rebuilds generators on the side. Upon inspection he found that my water pump was leaking into the back end. Below is a photo of the mess this created in the back end. Everything cleaned up, new water pump, new backend parts, everything painted and normal maintenance on the frontend and everything is up and running. Cost was about 1/3 the cost of a new generator.

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Glad it worked out for you.
 
How'd you get the generator out of the boat? Looks like a very tough fit.
 
Thats the issue with the sound shields. They hide the impeding failures. Was getting water in my bilege and final traced it down to a anti-siphon valve that was leaking and running down the hoses into the gen. After removing the shield in the back and inspecting i could see the rust stains. Could have lead to more serious issues if left unchecked.
 
That's awesome! I'm glad to have been able to help out. Hope she runs great for many hours to come.
 
How'd you get the generator out of the boat? Looks like a very tough fit.

Getting it out was a pain. Had to haul the boat to pull the STBD engine exhaust and remove the back seat so the engine hatch could be fully opened. Once the space was created it wasn't too bad since the generator is only 100 lb.
 

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