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Not a pond question but I thought surely someone on here could give me a rough idea. We have a generator/welder powered by a Kubota D850 engine that was purchased new in 1988 and I am wondering how many hours this engine is good for. It's been well maintained but the generator portion needs repaired and I'm trying to decide whether to repair it or just buy a new one.




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I've heard of diesel welder/generators lasting over 5000 hours, and I think Kubota is just about as reliable as any.

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I forgot to mention this generator has around 7400 hours on it. I was trying to search the internet and found some comments on a marine site that said it's not uncommon for them to last 30,000 hours with some repairs. They weren't specific about the "some repairs" part and that's what concerns me.

My shop guy just came in and said he talked to a dealer and they said they commonly go to 20,000 hours with regular maintenance. That seems like a lot of hours.




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There's practically no limit if you don't mind opening up your wallet and rolling up your sleeves. But you can expect to start spending money after a few thousand hours, and bigger money after 10K.

Age can be just as much an enemy as hours, at least to the rubber and plastic parts. Most of them are not real expensive to replace.

My buddy has a 2001 Deutz 20K unit with only 900 hours, and is having to replace a bunch of minor stuff.

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 Originally Posted By: Ryan Freeze
I forgot to mention this generator has around 7400 hours on it. I was trying to search the internet and found some comments on a marine site that said it's not uncommon for them to last 30,000 hours with some repairs. They weren't specific about the "some repairs" part and that's what concerns me.

My shop guy just came in and said he talked to a dealer and they said they commonly go to 20,000 hours with regular maintenance. That seems like a lot of hours.


Ryan,

I've spent a fair amount of time playing with small 2 and 3 cylinder diesel engines on tractors in the 15 to 30 hp range. I'm not sure how well tractors compare to welders-generators, but I'd say that 20,000 hours on any small diesel is extremely optimistic without major maintenance.

At least on tractors, it seems like many of these size engines begin having issues at around 3500 to 7500 hours when they've been reasonably maintained. It usually starts with a little bit of blowby, either with smoke coming out from the breather valve, or smelling fuel in the crankcase oil. Bearings start to wear. Injectors start to wear and need rebuilding. Overall the engine just gets tired and doesn't start as well, nor does it have as much power as it originally did. It starts to use a lot more fuel. Then then waterpump and alternator die, and the seals dry out.

With that said, none of these are real expensive repairs. A complete rebuild would still be cheaper than a new engine, and it should last at least another 5000 hours.

Good luck,
Ken


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We've had a bad year with our welders but a good year business wise. Isn't funny how the only time things break is when you're using them?;)
The first welder to go down was a Kubota powered Multiquip after 1600 hrs. Again the motor is fine but the generator had catastrophic damage due to a failed bearing. New generator parts cost around $5K from MQ with a "discount" due to the low hours but that amount is totally unreasonable considering a completely new unit costs under $6K. We ended up buying a new unit to replace the MQ. Next our shop welder burned up from exeeding the duty cycle. Then this old Winco the thread is about stopped generating due to the brushes wearing off and cutting into the rotor(they were replaced once but we didn't add that maintenance item when we switched to computer scheduling. The repair shop says they can have the rotor built back up by TIG welding and machining it back to spec and install new brushes for around $1000. I have another portable unit as a backup so I think I'm gonna chance the repair.

Isn't it funny how much longer the 1989 machine outlived the 2002 machine many times over. What's even funnier is we have a 1978 400AMP machine with a Perkins that has outlived them all and is still running strong.

They don't make 'em like they used to.




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With regular maintenance and exercising the unit on a regular bases we were told to expect 10,000 hours out of our 5500 gas Onan Gen. I would think a Kubota diesel should get 20-30k easy. JMO


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