Next challenge .. genny shutting down?

Happy Dayz

Active Member
Jun 26, 2017
543
Sarasota, FL
Boat Info
'06 260 Sundancer, 6.2, BIII, Kohler 5kw
79' classic Kona Family Cruiser jet boat..
Engines
6.2 w/ BIII, 502 w/ Berkekley
So, had not had a problem until last night...

Fired up genny.. Koehler 5k.. started fine, cycled the choke.. ran for 5 mins and shut down.. no sputter, straight ignition kill? Tried again..same, this morning....same

Have half tank of fuel... oil level okay... plenty of water flow through exhaust... ??

What ya think? ...thanks in advance..
 
Trouble shooting my generator issue, similar to yours, became a part-time job for me. It aged me. :)

Sounds like a sensor, electrical, or perhaps your fuel solenoid (if so equipped)?? After doing many of the things you're going to read about on this site I ended up finding (well, the marina found) that there was a short/cut wire in one wire in my main wiring loom creating an intermittent short. Super, extra frustrating. And hard to find. I hope yours goes more quickly and costs you a lot less!
 
CO alarms up to date?

Does anyone know when CO alarms were tied to Generators like my previous 2011 260 DA?

When they were out of date the generator would shut down immediately.
 
Gennys suck. 95% of my boat problems relate to Kohler. Get used to it.
 
I had a similar problem. It ended-up being the anti-dieseling solenoid plus the fuel pump. Was a pain to troubleshoot. took months. I posted more details in the other thread referenced by stg.
 
Well damn.. waited till got home to check out..

Coolant level is full..
Oil full..
Don't have readout on controls...
I flushed when home by hose in strainer. .. started fine.. cycled through choke.. ran fine.. I shut down before it did?

Time for some reading research... uuggg
 
First step for me was to figure out if there was spark or not when trying to restart after an unwanted shutdown. You can rule-out all the electronics / sensor issues if there is, and then check fuel supply.
 
In to see solution. I’m having a similar problem.

Good luck!
Nic
 
Just remember the warning in your manual about repeated attempts to start the generator.

"After 1st failed attempt turn the sea cock to the off position to prevent water being sucked into the exhaust side of the generator. Then try to restart."

It goes into more detail in the manual....... so you don't hydro lock the unit.
 
update...

got her in the water friday.. ready with tools, etc.. at ramp, fired up gen, normal, cycled the choke sequence, smoothed out and ran for good 15 mins no shut down? good water flow thru exhaust..

with my laser temp gun, i read temps around the head water jacket output upwards of 230... but the coolant tank where connects to heat exchanger much cooler..

got out on water with Admiral and back to shut down!! was disappointed and didnt use..

back at the house yesterday I pulled impellar and it is soft and good...

i filled the coolant full as i could and removed the breather screw on top in back (but never had fluid come out)

decided fuel filters maybe and went to West Marine to laugh and walk right out $$$...will order the filters and report...
 
Because it ran for 15 mins, i'm not sure low coolant is the issue, but If you didn't have coolant come out the breather, screw hole you could still have a bubble somewhere in the cooling system. When I had similar issues I found that squeezing the coolant hoses to "burp" the system finally allowed me to get enough coolant in so that it ran from the breather hole prior to topping off.

Best of luck on finding a solution, generators can be amazingly frustrating!
 
Update...

Finally had time and was going to dive in deep if needed... began poking around about to remove exchanger and notice the exiting hose had a bit of a kink.. hose was dry trying to get off.. could feel restriction with finger in bend.. replaced with a little more hose and routed over returning hose...

Hopefully my solution.. had to be restricting flow... unfortunately we have Alberto in the Gulf squashing our Memorial Day weekend. .







 
The gas pickup line in your genny is shorter so it won’t run your tank dry. If the fuel tank is low on fuel that may be the issue. The pickup is not in fuel.
 
The gas pickup line in your genny is shorter so it won’t run your tank dry. If the fuel tank is low on fuel that may be the issue. The pickup is not in fuel.

not sure where your response came from.. plenty of fuel.. been ongoing issue.. the hose is the raw water exiting the exchanger...
 
the hose replacement had no impact.. still shutting down... ugg
 
I'm convinced that if our main engines caused as many headaches as our generators nobody would own boats.

If you want to enjoy the rest of your summer - pretend your boat doesn't have a generator :)

If you know the location of your sensors (oil, temp, water) and have a meter you should be able to see if one of your sensors is "closing" at the 5 minute mark. Sounds like overtemp to me if it's 5 minutes post-startup every time?

Do you have the "warmup/preheat" button you use in conjunction with the start button? Have you tried hitting that button again when the gen starts to die? If you hit that button and it prevents the generator from quitting you can be moderately sure one of your sensors is triggering the shut down.

Have you confirmed you're getting good flow from your seacock? Have you opened the strainer and open the seacock while in the water, get good flow of water into the boat? Easy check.

Generators are the devil....
 

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