I Bought a Military Surplus Diesel Generator to Power my House

Generator tech here, if possible you should avoid running your diesel generator under low loads for extended periods, this can lead to something called "wet stacking". A diesel engine needs to run under load in order to burn clean, under no load conditions you'll coke up the engine and shorten it's life. Simply put, you'll want to run your generator at a minumum 25% load whenever possible, and every so often you'll want to run it up to 100% for a few hours to burn off carbon and spooge buildup as well as verify function at rated capacity.

Former 91D (Power Generator Mechanic) for 8 yrs here 👋! The MEP models had common issues with wet stacking. Please run around a 80% load for around 30mins-1hr at your yearly service date. If taken care of & treated right which you are, the gen will take care of you. I've worked on every generator the US Army had to offer and also was a military contractor who would reset these generators on a daily basis. Your gen should have came with a TM (technical manual) so please refer to it for your services. If you have any questions or need some advice please feel free to reach out to me. Congrats on your purchase!

I cannot believe how many experienced, knowledgeable people of a technical background have collected in this comment section, it is joyful to read people share their knowledge and good advice with reasoning!!

Electrician here; pleased to see that you're adhering to code, and doing a neat, non-lashup job. Attention to detail saves MANY problems down the road. Next: Battery bank + Inverter. Two reasons: 1) initial switchover on power loss is marginally faster, especially if your generator is cold or the outage is a short one, and 2) (more important) You can load up your generator recharging the bank, and prevent carbon depositing in the cylinders - Need to periodically run a generator under heavy load to keep it clean. Downside of a bank + inverter is more cost and more maintenance. If you're NOT getting a bank, consider getting a dummy load that can artificially load up the generator.

I hope that the Army mechanic who took such excellent care of this beauty sees this and feels good about it! Thanks.

I work on these exact generators all the time. The water separator fuel filter you changed at 13 minutes, well, it's a good idea to leave that water drain on there. Especially when filling with jerry cans. If you don't regularly bleed the water out of that filter the ice will blow the bottom of the filter off. If you're interested in some house-bound upgrades, a battery tender, battery blankets and block heater could help in the winter months. If you anticipate running it for a long time (greater than 12hrs straight) you can plumb a 40gal drum of fuel into the aux fuel inlet. Common failure points on these generators are the fuel return line up top, which tends to get porous, batteries, the water separator, as mentioned, and occasionally the fuel shutoff solenoid. If you're interested in service manuals / parts diagrams let me know. Enjoy!

You’re the man. Everything you do on here seems to always be done to the highest reasonable quality you are capable of. That’s a gift. Love it.

All vets raised an eyebrow when dude said "reliable"

I have no need for a military surplus diesel generator, but this sure was a lot of fun to watch.

the 400 hertz are for radar systems, namely the SQS-36 Firefinder and ANTPQ-64 Sentinel. Those 10K generators have Yanmar engines and we would run them 24/7 and only shut them down for every 200 hours for oil changes. We had 2 per radar and would switch gens every 200 hours. Each generator would have 4000+ hours on them at the end of a deployment and they would go directly to Toby Hanna Army depot to get rebuilt or what we called a reset. I know those systems like the back of my hand and would by a surplus one in a heart beat.The internal tank is only good for about 8 hours of run time but you can run a line for an external tank.

As soon as you didn't have power at the studs, I knew exactly what happened. Lol Marine 1142 here. Loved the MEP generators.

We have a 300 gal propane tank already so we went with a 14kw generator. This one burns 1.1 gal per hour at 50 percent which makes it the best deal in my area in N/California. Our propane provider stepped up our delivery schedule so we're never below 50 percent full. So far everything's gone well. We had one four day outage. I called them and they were out 3 days later with 150 gal. I'm very pleased so far.

Man look at that gooseneck trailer just waiting to get finished

Cummins PG tech here. It would be a good idea to have a battery charger and block heater if you intend to use it during winter. Battery heater wouldn’t hurt either

I just got interested in military auction generators and this was the first video i found. Wow. Your delivery of the info was awesome. I will be watching part 2 for sure.

I used to be in the Army(91B) Light Wheel Vehicle Mechanic. And that's how we did most of the fuel filters for the Humvees,2 1/2 ton & 5 ton trucks and generators. Takes less time to complete reassembly and maintenance on the vehicle. Especially if it's a combat zone situation.

Waldo, A suggestion from an old electrician is to make a habit of making connections - grounding conductors (green or bare copper ground wire) first, grounded conductor ( white neutral) second and ungrounded conductor (colored hot) last. Just a simple way to create safety routes before the final connection. Remember all connections are considered energized until proven unenergized. Good habits keep us alive. Thanks for the videos.

I worked on many of these 10K-TQG (Tactical Quiet Generator) generators during my 20 years in the Army. I definitely agree with the previous commenters about wet stacking. If these ran at low load for too long, oil would start spraying out of the exhaust. We occasionally used a load bank, basically a large resistive heater, to run them at a higher load to prevent the wet stacking.

I was an Army generator mechanic too and had the privilege of working with Rick Tavares when I was at Ft. Bragg. Rick is a civilian contractor who worked with Fermont when they were developing these generators and Rick is a brilliant man. To reinforce what the other generator mechanic said, these generators were designed to run with a minimum of 80% load hence the need for a load bank which is a dummy load so the motor won’t wet stack. I had a 5 kw come in my shop that was so stopped up it wouldn’t stay running and when it did finally run, it took all day running at 100% load to blow all the soot and carbon out. This cleaning put usually takes 2-3 hours but this one was the worst I’d ever seen. Find you a load bank or your engine will eventually just quit from being stopped up with soot and carbon and then it’s engine replacement time= lots of $$$$.

Your little trick running the whole saw bit through the vinyl siding backwards was slick. It reminded me of my apprentice days; how the old dads have real tricks for faster and better outcomes, bravo.