During our 2013 cruising season we were at anchor in Ganges Harbor on Salt Spring Island, BC. The Genset had been running for about 30 minutes and I had just wetted down in the shower when the Onan decided to shut itself down. After finishing my shower, a series of trouble shooting steps were called for.

Started with the obvious. She started up, but noticed no sea water being discharged. At that point she decided to shut herself down again. Opened the sea water strainer and it was plugged. Normally, there is nothing in the strainer when I check it each season. The harbor contained lots of sea gunk, so I suspect it sucked a glob in during its run.

While I was at it I checked the sea water pump impeller and it was due for replacement so did that, too. But the Genset would not start. After reading the user manual several times I finally picked up on the fault circuit breaker. It is a small red button on the engine control panel. Reset it and the engine fired right up. It seems there are three fault sensors; high exhaust temp, low oil pressure and high coolant temp. Any of those conditions and the Onan will trigger the fault circuit and shut itself off.

Again, it ran for about 30 minutes and then started to hesitate. The Onan would not hold the governed 1,800 RPM needed to maintain 60 cycles and 120 VAC. The symptom seemed to be fuel starvation. Replaced the original Racor two micron cartridge fuel filter on the engine with a NAPA six micron #3426 spin on fuel filter. That was last year and the Onan has been back to her old reliable self.