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Kohler 10EZO shutting down after 15 min

Discussion in 'Generators' started by Natrillius, Aug 28, 2022.

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  1. Natrillius, Aug 28, 2022
    #1
    Natrillius

    Natrillius New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 28, 2022
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    Greetings Everyone,
    I purchased a new boat this year and everything was in good working order until our last trip when my Genset began shutting down after approximately 15 minutes. After shut down it will restart and run for 2-3 minutes before shutting down again. When running it runs flawlessly.
    I have began the troubleshooting process to determine what the cause is, but would love some guidance as to what it could be. I naturally want to lean toward a temp shutdown but could be missing something.

    So far:
    - Inspected raw water pickup (clean)
    - Inspected sea strainer (clean)
    - Replaced impeller and inspected pump (good)
    -Inspected oil condition and level is nominal
    - shut down is not caused by an overload as it happens regardless of load.

    any thoughts or insight would be greatly appreciated.

    thank you all
  2. mapism, Aug 28, 2022
    #2
    mapism

    mapism Senior Member

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    Fuel starving, possibly.
    You don't mention the fuel pre-filter and filter, did you check them?
  3. Pascal, Aug 28, 2022
    #3
    Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    I m not familiar with kohlers but any raw water flow issue will usually be obvious due to higher noise level at the exhaust.

    do you have a temp gauge to check temp ? If not, use an infrared thermometer to check the temp. If so, and if it is indeed high, check the coolant level. How old is the gen? The coolant pump could be going bad

    but first things first and as mapism suggested, start with the fuel filters, BOTH primary and secondary

    how does it shut down? Is it a clean stop like if you shut it down, or does it start hunting and loosing power ? Does it run longer under No or light load?
  4. captholli, Aug 28, 2022
    #4
    captholli

    captholli Senior Member

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    The generator should be showing fault codes or shutdown event messages on the comm screen. What code are you getting?
  5. mapism, Aug 28, 2022
    #5
    mapism

    mapism Senior Member

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    Coming to think of it, that's a good point, for two reasons:
    First, the OP genset doesn't have any coolant temp measurement (unless retrofitted).
    Second, it does have an automatic safety shutdown, which can be triggered by just two events: low oil pressure and overheat.
    Now, low pressure is rather unlikely, because it wouldn't make any sense to wait as much as 15 mins to shut it down.
    OTOH, it sounds reasonable that it takes a while to overheat upon cold start, and much less upon subsequent restarts when already warmed up.

    Ref. captholly suggestion, unfortunately (or fortunately, in some ways...) in the 10EOZ, which I guess is what the OP actually meant by 10EZO, there's zero electronic control of the engine, hence no digital display and no fault codes.
  6. Pascal, Aug 28, 2022
    #6
    Pascal

    Pascal Senior Member

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    It depends how quickly it is restarted. If restarted right away, it would still be too hot to run for 2 to 3 minutes if it had shut down on overheat.

    I had a weird issue on one of our Onan 47s a few months ago where it would shut down very quickly on full load. I knew it wasn’t a cooling issue but wrongly assumed that if it had been fuel it would hunt and miss before shutting down. Turns out this gen had a sensor which shuts it down as soon as it sense a drop in RPM … lesson learned. Don’t ASSume!