Cummins Onan 7.5 kW Genset Break-In

[SteveInMD]

I'm having trouble finding info. on the break-in process for a Cummins Onan 7.5 kW generator. Does anyone have a link to this? Or can anyone tell me the highlights?

[a64pilot]

Keep looking and if you find it ignore this and follow the factory recommendation.

Every Diesel I have ever broken in, and aircraft engines all want to be warmed up fully, then a good load put on them, avoid light loading like the plague, you want them loaded up at 75% or so of power for the first couple of hundred hours, you do not want them running at night when its so cool the AC doesn't kick in and the generator is essentially powering nothing, even if you have to plug in a apace heater or two and let the AC and the heaters battle it out to keep a load on it do so.

Probably unnecessary, but I change oil the first time very quickly, in the belief to get any possible dirt of initial wear particles out of the system, and oils is cheap, so why not?

If you run it with a very light load at first, it's possible the rings may not seat and you will have an engine that burns a little oil

[Lepke]

Image scanned from similar small Onan manual: