Marine Generator Madness

Anyone who has been following along with the Daggers Down blog knows that we bought a brand-new generator in December of 2020. It was one of the most expensive boat upgrades we made except for upgrading the batteries and solar. We decided that a new generator which could charge the batteries when we were on anchor and could run the AC or heater, when needed, was worth the expense.

It proved its worthiness during the February 2021 Texas freeze over, when it was so cold ice began to form on the salt water in Galveston Bay and we had to crack ice off or boat.

During the ice storm, the generator ran every day, all day, for days! It provided heat to our boat, and allowed us to use power when the shore power was cut off and it was too cloudy to charge the with solar. We were so fortunate to have a working generator when so many people across Texas were without electricity and water. We had both on Daggers Down.

In April 2021 when we left Kemah and headed out as first-time cruisers, we knew that staying in the USA for a year rather than heading to the Caribbean was probably a good idea for two reasons. One, COVID restrictions were still making travel difficult outside the USA, and two, we needed to test the many upgrades we had completed on the boat. We needed a good shake down cruise. However, I remember saying as we left dock, “Well at least there was one thing we would not have to worry about, and that was the generator.” It was brand new and working great.

It continued to work well charging batteries, as needed, and running the air conditioner while we cruised around Florida and as we headed up the east coast to Chesapeake Bay. We planned to spend the summer exploring this vast Bay as well as Long Island Sound.  We arrived in Chesapeake on May 26, 2021 ready for 6 months of sailing until hurricane season was behind us, but it was not to be! On June 9, the Marine Generator Madness began. Below is the timeline of us attempting to get the intermittently running generator fixed. It was maddening to say the least!

Generator Repair Timeline

June 8 Generator shut off and Blinked Error 7 (low water flow). Inspected the impeller, it did not look bad; however, Ben replaced it anyway.  The Generator still would not run and shut down with Error 7. He then, replaced the Temperature Sensor and the unit ran for about 3 hours.  Then it failed and we could not get it to run again.

June 9  Called Chesapeake Cummins Service Center and they said they could come out in two days at no charge since the generator was under warranty. Got a slip at York River Yacht Haven (YRYH) so repairman could assess boat.

June 11   Repairman diagnosed problem and decided it was the motherboard. A motherboard was ordered and would arrive on Monday.

June 14   Technician installed new motherboard. Unit seemed to be corrected and ran when tested at the dock.

June 23    Left dock for Northbound travel and unit failed that afternoon and would not run consistently.

June 28    Returned to YRYH and a different Technician came out. The unit was consistently failing.  He verified water flow and impeller status. He felt it was a faulty Pressure Switch but didn’t have a pressure gauge to test the sensor; took sensor to office to test.

June 29    Senor tested fine at shop, so he began looking for restrictions by blowing out lines. The problem was misdiagnosed that a jelly fish was in the through hull as generator seemed to work after the line was blown out.

July 12     Left dock after technician indicated AC was repaired and went to East River; generator shut off that evening. Ben blew out lines and it ran all night.

July 13      Ben shut generator off in the morning when we left the boat. He started the generator at dinnertime, and it shut off. He blew lines again, but it wouldn’t stay running.

July 14    We returned to York River Yacht Haven and called Cummins dealer again.

July 15     Initial repairman returned to pull the error log from the unit, but he didn’t bring the correct cable. They also decided to order another motherboard and a wiring harness. Unit was failing consistently, and we made some tests with the sensors connected & disconnected. Unit began to work and could not make it fail the remainder of the afternoon.

July 21    Repairman returned with proper cable to gather data; generator failed consistently while he was here. It was determined we needed a marine specialist

July 27    Technician returned with a marine specialist. The specialist determined that the 5/8” hoses were not to Spec and were too small. The Specialist was sure that the proper hoses would correct the problem. Why were we not told this in the beginning and why did it run for 6 months with the same hoses?

Aug      Ben and friend, Ron, installed the 3/4” hoses as requested by Cummins.

Sept. 1  Tried to run generator with new hoses, generator would not stay on for even a minute.  It was requested to setup a test to bypass all of the boat’s hoses and connect the generator to a bucket of water to evaluate.  The unit ran and would not fail; however, it was determined that it was only using 2 gallons of water per minute instead of the 5 gallons which was in the Specs.

Sept. 13 Hauled boat out to upgrade through hull to 3/4″ to match the hoses (and other things unrelated to the generator).

Sept. 15   Cummins replaced water pump and back flushed system while the boat was hauled out at Cape Charles. We used the same “bucket test” to supply water to unit. The unit seemed to increase usage from 2 gallons to almost 3 gallons per minute and the pressure at the sensor was consistently 2.5 lbs. The unit did not fail. Cummins was finally sure the unit was fixed.

Nov. 2    Put boat back in the water; started generator to test operation. It failed within 2 minutes. Started again it failed 3 additional times. After about an hour we started the generator, and it ran for a couple of hours. Restarted and it ran until early morning.  Restarted again and it ran until we turned it off.

Nov. 3    Contacted Cummins to inform them that unit was not repaired and requested a new generator. Cummins response was to try another test. We decided at this point we were done with Chesapeake Cummins and would pick up the battle again when we arrived in Miami.

Arrived November 30 in Coconut Grove, Miami

After getting settled on a mooring ball in Coconut Grove, we made the phone call to Miami Cummins Service Center. We shared with them the above timeline and they talked with the Tier 3 guy we had been working with in Chesapeake. It was decided they would send out an experienced marine generator technician the following week, on December 7.

To be honest we didn’t know what to expect. Were we starting over with a new center? Would the process take months and months again? Would they begin the trial-and-error process again? Would they finally either fix the generator or replace it? I certainly was skeptical for sure!

Ben dinghied over to pick up the technician around 10:00 and he got right to work. The repairman was here about an hour before he diagnosed the problem.

There was a kinked cooling water hose inside the generator casing next to the hull! The repairman indicted that it this took some effort to access this hose, but the kink should have been discovered back in June.

According to the technician, the reason the generator ran intermittently was if it was not hot the hose let enough water in, but as the hose got hot it would sag more and cut off the water supply. However, he indicated that he was surprised that it actually ran at all.

The service technician seemed quite sure he had found the problem. I wanted to believe that this was really the fix. However, we had been told so many times, that “this” was the fix and then the generator continued to run intermittently.

Thus, it has been over a week before I sat down to write this Generator Blog update, because I didn’t want to jinx the fix (hope I’m not now!) and I wanted to be sure it really was fixed.

Ben has been running the generator for several hours every day since the technician left, and last night, we ran the air conditioning and generator ALL NIGHT LONG and it did not shut off once.

So I hope that I am not remiss when I finally announce that 6 months after the generator stopped working, the Marine Generator Madness is finally over! Just goes to prove that when you are on boat nothing is as easy or quick as you would expect.

Moral of the story: If you need a Marine Cummins Generator fixed, use Miami Cummins Service Center.

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