Hi everyone. I recently bought a 2002 Adventurer WFG35U Class A motorhome. It has the 5.5kW Onan Marquis Gold generator. I knew when I bought it that the generator did not run. My guess is that it hadn't run for a while, but I didn't confirm that. The previous owner said he had taken it to have it looked at, but "they" couldn't find the problem - I find that hard to believe because I found the issue (or, at least the biggest issue) almost immediately. The external fuel pump was dead. I went to the local auto parts store and found the exact same pump... that fact that it was the same pump leads me to believe it had been replaced before, unless of course Winnebago installed Mr. Gasket fuel pumps at the factory.
After replacing the fuel pump and the spark plugs, I got a lot more coughing and choking out of the engine, like it was trying to start, but still nothing. So I bit the bullet and purchased a new carb. Even after installing the new carb, I still have trouble starting it. Once it starts, it runs great - nice even, smooth RPMs even under a load.
The problem is this - it needs to have the choke closed off in order to start it,
whether it is hot or cold. The issue with that is once it has run for a while, the choke remains open until the electric choke cools down, so I have to go outside and manually choke it to re-start it. The other thing I've noticed is that it will not start at wide-open-throttle. I have to manually hold the governor arm in an "up" position to close off the throttle (at least partially) in order to start it. The way that it is designed with the springs and the governor, it is set to always start at WOT and only choked when cold. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with priming - I've tried it with no priming at all, and primed it until gas was running out of the carb into the air box. Has anyone else run into this? Any thoughts?
I suppose I should be grateful that I got it running at all, but I'd sure like to be able to start it from inside of the coach.
-Jeff
Linear Mode
