Generator and Gen. Bay Rebuild

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Makes complete sence. Looks like I've something new to concider.

Mabye I'll hook up a 12volt fan to the preheat wire. I could exhaust it to the Radiator compartment but it will need some type of louvers that will close or I'll be creating a hole for noise to get out.

I guess I could also just go out and open the door prior to use to be safe and keep it simple. This would also be a good excuse to check the water and oil prior to every use

I wonder how many converters have designed this compartment with an exhaust fan that automaticly goes on prior to start-up, and how do they do it?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Joe I think you have the idea. If it ties in with the pre-heat of the glow plugs and your preheat cycle is long enough to bring in a few air changes I think you handled it.

[Just Plain Jeff]

So with each dryer cycle the generator gets treated to several quarts to a gallon of water in the form of vapor that will find its way into every part, internal and external of the genrator.

But if you choose to never run the dryer, you alternately get fumes from whatever is dripping, leaking or seeping into the generator box including CO, soot, fuel or oil vapors, etc.

The answer of course is that the dryer itself has a foam plug to keep bad stuff out. I know on my coach the plug that is supposed to seal against road dust or whatever else might come back up the dryer vent hose is far from a hermetic seal and I doubt that CO, or soot, or even diesel fuel fumes would be stopped.

To Joe's situation, I recommend treating the generator box as space that needs to be vented outside, it needs to be ventilated for 30 seconds or so before the generator is started, and the generator box needs to be isolated to the maximum extent possible from other bays and especially the living area.

I don't want to suggest the ventialtion fan can be eliminated, but upon generator start it can be turned off so that the box is a negative pressure area due to the generator air intake being inside the box and drawing in a large enough air flow to literally pull any fumes into and through the generator engine.

But no dryer vents. What an obvious path for CO from a defective exhaust pipe to travel into the living area of the coach.

Sorry I didn't get back on this sooner. Hitman Frank and I were setting up the 3-phase rotoconverter in the shop. Works wicked good.

Anyhoo, the deal that Liberty did was to provide a foam dealie inside the stackable dryer to 'seal out' the road nasties from the dryer whilst wandering down the interstate.

We didn't experience any unwanted fumage (new POG word?) in the dryer or living areas of the coach due to the dryer vent being in the generator compartment.

But I hear that a guy could have a toilet valve failure and wind up drinking black water.

Now that would be nasty.

Oh, don't blame me, I didn't engineer the deal, just reporting. Don't shoot the messenger.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

My only reason for beating that drum was the foam in the dryer lint trap might be sufficient for keeping road grit or dust from the dryer interior, but if you had a defective generator exhaust it will not stop CO from entering the coach, nor will it block odors such as that of diesel fuel that might come from a little spillage when changing filters.

At least by extending the dryer vent to the exterior of the coach you not only eliminate any possibility of CO or odors from the generator, but you aren't dumping all the moisture from the drying cycle onto and into your generator. It seems like the addition of the washer/dryer was a retrofit.

And yes, the plumbing to the toilet was another example of some questionable engineering. I don't think we should be defending or keeping these quiet, but should be making people aware of things on the coaches that need to be addressed.

[win42]

Jon: You are right on track per usual with both of your suggestions. Keep up the good work. We bus owners appreciate your keeping us out of trouble with your thoughtful suggestions.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Here is what happened to the wonderful original junction box for the Gen.

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It is plastic. That aint gonna happen again.

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Here is the glue I used on the foam insulation. Available at Home Depo, 12bucks a can.

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This is how well it sticks, immidiatly. This pic. was taken instantly after putting these two things togeather. I have not applied mechanical fasteners yet to the finished walls and ceiling and I just may not, mabye a couple in the ceiling then cover the screw heads with a piece of the white mylar tape.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Contact adhesive releases with heat. I would suggest you mechanically fasten the insulation to the walls in addition to adhesive.

We used heat guns to remove laminated plastic from the wood core of counter tops without damaging either the plastic or wood. It did not take a lot of heat to break the bond.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Per Jons suggestion of the risk of explosion at start-up due to unwanted fumes in the gen. bay and currently only passive ventilation I have come up with this.

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This is a medium sized, low profile, 12 volt automotive radiatator cooling fan with shroud. I will mount it underneeth the compartment at the exzisting rear floor opening by scraping away the sufficiant amount of sprayed foam from the bottom of the bus. I will protect it underneeth by a rearward facing shroud I'll construct from a medium I have not yet chosen.

The fan is larger than the exzisting opening but because its 12 volt, very low profile, inexpensive, and very abundent if to be replaced due to failure I'm going with it.

In order to keep the gen as quiet as possible I will not enlarge the opening either.

I will force air INTO the compartment causing positive pressure in the compartment, also Per Jons idea, and power it with the same glow plug wire that is activated with the gen. pre-heat switch that HAS to be engaged to start the gen.

It is a little more than I think is needed but this is another garage find and if it ever fails they are abundently available in any bone yard for a dime a dozen.

It was also suggested to me to put the preheat switch on a timer to assure sufficiant pre-start opporation time of the fan but in order to try to keep things simple I will make note and pre-heat for a min. of 30secs. manually.

Suppose I'll be adding a few mechanical fastners to the insulation too, Thanks for all the suggestions Jon, Jim and anyone with additional comments as well.

[Joe Cannarozzi]

Jim sorry for the late responce, don't think I'll do the perforated for now.

Although I have some minor things to finish we fired up the gen last night and ran it for an hour or so

Gotta love that electric fuel pump, did not have to prime it at all. It started and died twice then continued running purring like a kitten. Had to burp the cooling system 4 times before the temp. guage settled down.

Still have to insulate the backside of the door and trim off the radiator and install the pre-start fan. Huge project, felt good to here it run again.

To flash these you have to access the rectifier and you have to pull it apart to a pretty good degree. The fellow who repaired it ran a couple of leads to an external terminal so if it happens again we do not even have to unhook anything. Here is the process. With it running take a 12 volt battery and go pos to pos, neg to neg at the rectifyer for just an instant and wala your making power again.

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Welcome to my office. This is our free campground across the street.

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Here is before and after

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At this point the divider wall rad. and blower were still to come. A completed photo at night to highlight the new LED light strips is comming. Thanks for the help with the pics. Dale.

[gmcbuffalo]

Joe
Why not use a relay to power the prestart blower fan. Using the preheat lead to close the circuit that way you are not pull too many Amp thru the preheat circuit and the fan run on it's own circuit.
GregM