I have some MEPs


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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.29] on Saturday, November 22, 2014 at 22:06:18 :

In Reply to: OT Military Generators posted by x_purposes [24.127.58.217] on Saturday, November 22, 2014 at 20:46:44 :

Bought them at the DRMO 10 years ago when they were going cheap. I have a variety of sizes, and have only tried to get a couple of them running. Also have a couple old ones from the late '50s. One has a cute little water-cooled 4-cylinder 65 cu in Hercules flathead which I got running. The efficiency is terrible. It's much better at making hot water than electricity.

The smallest MEPs use a Briggs and Stratton 1-cylinder "lawnmower motor". There are also some that are essentially a civilian Onan with green paint and the power output de-rated per military specs.

Most of the mid-sized MEPs use 2 or 4 cylinder air-cooled Continental motors. The motor is a modular design which is kind of neat. They all have remote start capability, 24 electric or recoil starting, a 24 volt slave plug, and a good electrical panel with plenty of gauges and switches. The electrical end is sturdy and vastly over-built compared to a same-wattage civilian unit. As far as I know, all the MEPs run at 1800 RPM, which should make them last twice as long as the common 3600 RPM civilian units. They also make a 3kW 24VDC "super jumper" jump-start genset which puts out enough current to crank an engine over even without a battery attached.

The problem I've had with them is they've all been very hard to start. I've futzed with carburetors and magnetos until I got sick of it, finally resorted to ether, and then kind of gave up on them. It may be that mine were sent to the DRMO because they were hard to start, but whatever it was, none that I attempted was easy to fix. Fuel consumption with no load also seems high to me. For day-long use, I went back to a 5 KW 2-cyliner 1800 RPM Onan diesel that I got for free because it had a hole in a piston, leaky valves, and the exhaust all clogged up with carbon. If I needed to run a backwoods home for a long time, I think I'd go with the Onan diesel (or the military version thereof) rather than any of the gas-powered MEPs.

One interesting aside that I ran into is that the ultralight airplane guys are using the engines. They claim it's really an aircraft engine by design (not surprising, coming from Continental) and it can be souped up to give a lot more power. That also tells me it must be possible to fix them so they're easy to start. I gave up.



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