Generator surging!

Is there a quick fix, or do I need to do a carb tear down and cleaning?

HAPPPY 4th of JULY - INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Everyone,

Yes, I know I’ve been telling you to start your generators every month or so if you have fuel in them. And here I goofed up and left gasoline in a pair of my test generators since December and didn’t start them up until last month.

And guess what? They both had the dreaded surge. As you can see I have a Honda EU3000i and an Energizer 4500W, both great generators.

How I fixed them…

While I’m capable of doing a complete teardown and cleaning of the carb or fuel injector on a generator, I just didn’t have the time. So I decided on trying fuel injector cleaner and a 1,500-watt load for an hour.

Fix it in the mix

Since each generator holds a little over 3 gallons of gasoline and the STP Fuel Injector Cleaner comes in a 12 oz container which is rated for up to 21 gallons of gas in your car, that’s works out to around 1/2 ounce of additive per gallon of gasoline. So I added around 2 oz of the STP fuel cleaner to each generator (a little higher concentration than the minimum), filled up their tanks with fresh gasoline, and hooked a 1,500-watt ceramic space heater to each generator as a load.

And guess what? It worked!

While each generators continued surging for a while (the Energizer was a lot worse than the Honda), after 30 minutes of run time each of them settled down and began running smoothly. I gave them another 30 minutes of run time on their 1,500-watt loads and they’ve been happy all week doing my Air Conditioner starting tests.

Don’t be me…

Yup, be sure to completely run all the gasoline out of your generator(s) this fall before you store them for winter. And adding some Sta-Bil Storage fuel treatment to the gas tank is probably a good idea if you don’t plan to run your generator every month.

And yes, if you only use propane in your generator(s) there’s no need to worry about gumming up the carburetor with evaporated gasoline. However, you still need to change your generator oil per manufacturer’s recommendations, but that’s another story.

Let’s play safe out there… Mike