Oil for Onan generator with 460 Ford engine.

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We just purchased a used Onan generator for work and it has a Ford, LSG-875 engine on it. 460 cu in, 1800 rpm, turbochaged, running on propane.

It has proudly displayed on the side near the oil fill - USE ONLY QUAKER STATE HD-30.

Is there any reason not to dump the existing oil once we run it a bit and fill it with Delvac-1?

And yes, I posted this in the wrong forum first and just noticed it was wrong. Can one of the mods delete the other thread?

TIA!
 
For Illinois I would run Schaeffer's #4006S or Amsoil ANG.

In addition, I would make sure the pressure regulator is in good shape.
 
Thanks Mola. I never thought to look for oil that was specifically formulated for NG/LP engines.

The unit is outside, but is in an enclosure and has an AC line powered circulating coolant heater to keep the coolant temp up all the time. At least it won't be doing any -20F starts with a cold soaked engine, but I haven't checked yet to see if there is also an oil heater.

I'm going to try and check everything out on it next week and get what we need to keep around for it stockpiled. The guys that delivered it and set it up claim it's all ready to go, but after talking to them, I don't get the warm and fuzzies about that being true. They were a bit scary in their seeming lack of knowlege...
 
Sounds like the guys know how to site-it-up but nothing about the mecanhics.

If the coolant is heated by AC all the time, then there should not be any cold starts so a synthetic HD 30 might just do well in the engine.

In that case you might consider the Amsoil ACD.

These engines normally run very clean but I would still change oil once a year and maybe even AUTO-RX it before winter.

So this is approximately a 200 kW unit?
dunno.gif
Just curious on the Hp and electrical rating.

If my estimate is correct, you could power 13 homes or 6 farms.
shocked.gif
 
Yea, should be good to around 92 kW with the proper generator pack.

With the kind of derating you have with the current setup, the engine is not loaded much at all.
 
This thing is 70KW but it's continuous duty at full load. The engine is about 165hp at 1800 RPM and given the overall efficiency and designing it to last a lot of hours the numbers work out about right. With a larger generator I'd guess that same engine might be useable up to 90KW or so.

You are right about the setup guys. They did ok with placing the unit and the doing the electrical but seem to know little about the service of it.

We've had the setup running now to test and it's pretty slick. We killed the main into the place and waited. About 20 seconds later we heard the unit start, and less than a minute later we had the whole plant operating like nothing ever happened.

I do have to wonder how long our 1000 gallon propane tank will last before it's empty though...
 
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