My Trails

A few weeks ago I bought a portable generator to replace the on-board unit in my motorhome. The Onan generator that was installed in my rig was on its last leg. It still started fine and powered everything in the coach but it burned oil and I could always smell the exhaust. And the main thing I didn’t like was that it weighed 400 pounds for something I used only once or twice a year. That’s a lot of weight to carry around for a backup. 

Donnas mechanic agreed to remove the generator from Minnie in trade for the parts he could use from it. I thought that was a good deal so he and his son removed it one day when I was in town. 

The portable generator that I bought is called Pulsar 2200. It’s dual fuel meaning it can run on gas or propane.  I like the idea of a generator that runs on propane because propane is easier to carry than gasoline, burns cleaner than the noxious fumes from gas, never goes bad, and propane doesn’t gum up a carburetor like old gas does. 

When I connected up the generator at camp, try as I might, I couldn’t get it to run from propane bottle. I final realized it wasn’t letting any propane to the generator and figured out the regulator was faulty. I called the company and they agreed to send another regulator out to me. I was leaving town the next day so I knew it would be some time before I received the replacement part. In the meantime I put gasoline in it and ran it for an hour or so. Even though I didn’t want to put gas in it, I wanted to make sure the generator would operate okay. 

I used it a couple times on gasoline and waited for the part to come. Yesterday my batteries got down to 40% and the weather forecast was for  clouds and rain for the next few days. My solar was struggling to keep up and the temperature went to 90° yesterday, forcing me to run my AC all afternoon. I started the generator, but when it quit a few minutes later, I realized I was out of gas. The nearest gas station is 25 miles away so I thought I would be in conservation mode for a couple days. 

After examining the propane regulator that came with the generator, I decided to take it apart and see what was wrong. I figured it couldn’t hurt to take a look inside. When I broke apart the two halves of the primer regulator I found out that a pin had slipped out of the inlet mechanism. I replaced the pin and reassembled the part. 

The generator started on the second pull and has been working fine for about an hour now! With the solar and generator, I’m putting in 100 amps to my batteries.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 14th, 2025 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Adventure, The Great Outdoors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.