[tuga]

Reminder: I changed oil & all filters yesterday.

As luck would have it we had a fairly cool morning, about 79 degrees. So I had to wait to test my gen cooling system until this afternoon when the temp was around 86 degrees.

I removed the radiator cap, started the generator, turned on both ACs, both stove burners, the dryer, and unplugged the shorepower cord. I was drawing 50 amps on each leg! 100 amps total - the gen was loaded up! I watched the water in the radiator and very soon it started to move around back and forth - NOT circulating - just moving around and bubbling a little.

Next, I felt the top hose close to the thermostat; it was hot and I touched it every few minutes to see if it would get burning hot. I couldn't tell much difference thru the entire test; it seemed about the same temp everytime I touched it. So since it didn't get too hot to touch, I assume my thermostat is bad and I will change it. Newell service told me not the run the gen when the slide drawer was open for a long time, so I retracted it while I was running the test. I left the radiator cap loose on top of the radiator neck.

After 45 minutes of running with a load the operating temp was 190 degrees
After 1 hr it was 200 degrees
After 1 hr 15 minutes it held at 200 degrees. If the ambient temp was around 93 like it was this past weekend @ LSU the operating temp would have been around 210 or 220 like it was in Baton Rouge.

At this point I removed all loads and just let the generator run drawing 0 amps. 45 minutes later it was running at 180. I think we can clearly assume the higher the ambient temp the higher the operating temp (unless you have a super human generator).

Sooooo.... it looks to me that my thermostat is bad and is not opening. I changed it about 2 years ago and I will change it again. I have seen water flowing in a radiator (cap off) before and mine was NOT flowing. There was a good bit of wind from the gen blower and at first I thought the wind was moving the water. It looks to me like the water pump is working at about 50% capacity; if that's possible. Before I change the water pump I am going to have the radiator cleaned and inspected and I am going to change the hoses (keeping the old ones as spares).

The slow movement of the water could be caused by 2 things: a clogged radiator or a marginal water pump. Since it is less expensive to clean the radiator I will start with that.

I would be interested to hear others thoughts.