Kubota Generator

[Joe Kelly]

Hi Guys,
You've always been a great help with tractor questions and problems....so now I would like to ask about maintaining a stand-by generator.

I've a Kubota generator, a nice orange one, same color as my tractor <grin> and it has a little, two cylinder diesel engine!

As a stand by unit, I run it once a quarter for about an hour to let everything warm up nicely and I power up much of the house with it, to provide a load for the generator.

With no power failures or extended runs, it can be a full year and I only put about four hours on it.....so what to do about changing oil and oil filter?

It seems "non green" to drain and discard oil with a mere 4 or so hours of use, but I also fear the effects of time....condensation and so on....most experts seem to indicate annual oil changes as a minimum for stored or little used equipment.

What are your thoughts, please?

JoeK

 

[kuboman]

Hi Guys,
You've always been a great help with tractor questions and problems....so now I would like to ask about maintaining a stand-by generator.

I've a Kubota generator, a nice orange one, same color as my tractor <grin> and it has a little, two cylinder diesel engine!

As a stand by unit, I run it once a quarter for about an hour to let everything warm up nicely and I power up much of the house with it, to provide a load for the generator.

With no power failures or extended runs, it can be a full year and I only put about four hours on it.....so what to do about changing oil and oil filter?

It seems "non green" to drain and discard oil with a mere 4 or so hours of use, but I also fear the effects of time....condensation and so on....most experts seem to indicate annual oil changes as a minimum for stored or little used equipment.

What are your thoughts, please?

JoeK

If you want it to last 1000 years then change the oil every year otherwise I would do it every 2 years, and it will only last 500 years.

 

[kuboman]

JOE; just curious as to what gen you have.

 

[Joe Kelly]

Kuboman,

I loved your reply about lasting 1000 years....I guess that might just outlast me by a year or two! Son of a gun!!!!!

My generator is a Model GL-6500S Low Boy-Quiet Series, purchased from my Kubota dealer in 2006.

Rated output is 6 KW with a peak of 6.5 KW

The engine is a 2 cylinder Model ZB600-GL-S displacing 34.78 cu in. It is a glow plug start and has been absolutely dependable.

It is necessary for me in the wilderness....given a power failure that can last for days, I have power for my well pump, my oil burner for hot water, refrigeration and even power to do laundry. Longest outage was several years ago, lasted 10 days and I ran my generator about two hours every morning and every night to keep the refrigerator cold and myself with hot water.

Back to "wasteful" oil change every year, with only 4 or 5 hours of run time, I heard somewhere that diesels are nasty for producing acids that lurk in the oil probably related to the older high sulphur diesel fuels and oil changes were very important to get these acids out of the engine....I do run cheaper off road diesel in my tractor and the generator....which may or may not be low sulphur.

JoeK

 

[kuboman]

Kuboman,

I loved your reply about lasting 1000 years....I guess that might just outlast me by a year or two! Son of a gun!!!!!

My generator is a Model GL-6500S Low Boy-Quiet Series, purchased from my Kubota dealer in 2006.

Rated output is 6 KW with a peak of 6.5 KW

The engine is a 2 cylinder Model ZB600-GL-S displacing 34.78 cu in. It is a glow plug start and has been absolutely dependable.

It is necessary for me in the wilderness....given a power failure that can last for days, I have power for my well pump, my oil burner for hot water, refrigeration and even power to do laundry. Longest outage was several years ago, lasted 10 days and I ran my generator about two hours every morning and every night to keep the refrigerator cold and myself with hot water.

Back to "wasteful" oil change every year, with only 4 or 5 hours of run time, I heard somewhere that diesels are nasty for producing acids that lurk in the oil probably related to the older high sulphur diesel fuels and oil changes were very important to get these acids out of the engine....I do run cheaper off road diesel in my tractor and the generator....which may or may not be low sulphur.

JoeK

You are correct about the acids and such but with only 4 hours on the oil there is not enough acids to worry about. Also you are running the engine which re-coats all the bare metal parts again. The worst case would be to leave dirty oil in all winter and not run the engine.
But.....your little engine maybe uses 3L of oil? If you are concerned it is not a big expense to change the oil, just some trouble.

I have heard great things about those gensets. Is it really quiet?

 

[Joe Kelly]

Quiet is a hard thing to quantify, most will agree. I sure don't have a meter to measure db level or anything, however, I had a 4 KW gasoline gen set prior to moving to the woods and man, it was a screamer....plain old Briggs and Stratton engine with the factory muffler and it was LOUD.

My 6 KW Kubota with the little diesel is certainly quiet in comparison. I wondered if it would be quiet, since it runs at over 3000 rpm but I have to say I was impressed that it is pretty quiet.

Thank you for your thoughts on changing oil....I think I'll do the annual thing; it's not THAT much work and I have disposal sources that burn used/waste oil for heat.

JoeK