Hi out there fellow generator people, trysquie in South West Pennsylvania here. I have a Coleman Powermate 5000W 6250W peak generator with the Tecumseh 10 HP motor (after reading the site I wish it was a B&S motor). I have talked to a teck who works on these units and he told me that I should use straight 30 W oil. He said that when people use multi grade they blow up. I asked him what he thought about Castrol straight 30 weight. He said that is the good stuf. He also said the exhaust has female threads for npt pipe, if you remove the factory muffler you can get to the threads, and I could add my own muffler on this type of pipe. He also said to be sure to use a flexable conection on the pipe. I went on "McMaster Carr" site and found flexable stainless pipe (the lower cost unit is discontinued but if you order it they give you the higher cost higher quality unit at the lower cost). You will require some straight threaded pipe and some right angles. I found a small muffler with a heat shield at the local auto parts store (advance auto parts her in PA there part no. from the side of this muffler 18677 9 245 ) and used PC7 epoxt puty to temporally hold the corect mounting angles with respect to the muffler heat shield attaching to U shaped steel bent from 1 inch flat steel that I purched from home depo and bent into two big U shapes to mount to the bolts on the alternator (I had to put longer bolts on that side of the generator, and extend and move the ground wire to the other side of the generator). I used very long flexable hose clamps from NAPA, (two sets, each made of two of the longest they sell) to hold the muffler to the steel while the PC7 epoxy putty dried. After the epoxy cured I had a local auto shop weld the steel to the heat shield (make sure to ask them to be careful not to burn through the muffler when welding to the heat shield). I have a lathe so I was able to turn a piece of steel to make the cup shaped piece that I had welded to the end of the pipe and provide fit to the inside of the input pipe for the muffler. I now have a home made auto muffler adapted to this generator. It did reduce the noise considerably but the valve train, piston, and air intake still make quite a racket. Before it was louder than a gas lawn mower. Now it is not as loud as a gas lawn mower. The way I added this muffler it moves with the generator and motor but still has the flex pipe for extra give. I am now going to add a heat shield between the heat shield of the muffler and the generator for added protection of the generator. I e-mailed Amsoil about oil for these air cooled motors and they e-mailed me back and said that regular multi grade oil will break down and not provide protection in these motors. They said full synthetic multigrade can handle these motors and will not break down. They make a multi-grade 10 W30 SAE 30 specifically for small air cooled motors (and no, I am not an Amsoil dealer or in any way conected to them, or to McMaster Carr, NAPA or advance auto parts). You still have to change the oil every 25 hours of use. I have learned some things from your web site, and just wanted to pass on some of the things I have learned regarding generators. I use to be around boats and saw many ways that people can blow things up or make mistakes that cause big problems. I hope to learn enough from this site and others to keep my generator runing when required. Signed, trysqqire in S.W. PA

I have a buddy with a 182RG and I have great respect for A&Ps and they should stick with aviation where their independence in deciding on replacement parts is prohibited. You claiming that a $3 oil filter at WalMart is identical to an approved and certified aircraft oil filter is laughable. They may look the same to you and if you close your eyes and wish REALLY, REALLY hard you can believe that they are so you can justify saving $11 dollars once a year on an oil filter.. To be clear, I am not debating that there are not excellent quality aftermarket filters. I am saying that a generic is usually a general replacement in a non-aircraft (auto-tractor and such) application and the assumption that a generic filter meets the OEM spec is dreaming because you don't know the internal specs for the OEM filter.. Regarding your bad mouthing the Honda OEM filter for interfering with the wires and cables... that fault is with Snapper, NOT with Honda. Snapper contracted with Honda for the engine as a sub assembly and it is Snapper's responsibility to integrate the engine as a component into the design of the mower. The engine as a component includes no cables and if there is interference it is bad engineering on Snapper's part. As I said, I'll pay the exorbitant price of $7.04 for an OEM filter instead of $3 for a generic WalMart filter and you do what you like with your own stuff but don't misinform people looking for accurate info and lead them astray because the two filters L@@K the same to you. You can't bounce a meatball and trying to get you to see the light is a waste of both our time so let's just leave it to the readers to decide on their own.

"My John Deere Service Department said to absolutely not oil the pre-filter Here is a copy/paste from a JD325 instrucion manual for 18hp Kawasaki powered 325. It is from the JD site. M96015 5. If precleaner (C) is dirty, remove it from paper element (E). 6. If paper element is excessively dirty, remove wing nut (D) and element (E). Replace it with a new element. IMPORTANT: Avoid damage! Dirt and debris can enter the engine through a damaged filter element: · Do not wash paper element. · Do not attempt to clean paper element by tapping against another object. · Do not use pressurized air to clean element. · Replace element only if it is very dirty, damaged or the seal is cracked. 7. If precleaner is dirty, clean it as follows: · Wash it in a solution of warm water and liquid detergent. DO NOT wash paper element. · Rinse precleaner. · Squeeze excess water from precleaner. · Allow precleaner to air dry. · Add approximately 30 ml (1 oz.) of clean engine oil to precleaner. · Squeeze precleaner to distribute oil evenly. 8. Install precleaner on paper element. 9. Install air cleaner cover and secure both cover latches. Install hood. Charles must have a different version, or something else has changed since then.

heri_cles, the sentence should have been "This means that the filter is located between the fuel tank and the fuel pump". I'm sorry for the error. A fuel pump has 2 "ports" through which liquid flows. One is the suction or inlet, this port must be connected to a hose that leads to the fuel tank. The other port is the pressure or outlet, this port connects to a hose that leads to the carburetor. Vacuum or pulse operated pumps also have the third port for the pulse hose but the part about the 2 liquid ports is true for ALL fuel pumps no matter if they are mechanically, electrically, or vacuum operated. I would bet that the filter assembly you have is meant for use on the suction side (between fuel pump and tank). Most of the filters I have seen that are for the pressure side of pump are constructed of metal. As to your other concerns: Length of hose.....With a run of about 4 feet and an inside diameter of 1/4" (and assuming the horsepower of the engine to be less than....say....50HP) your fuel pump would not even know it was drawing through a hose. At the low rate of fuel consumption of your engine...the fuel line might as well be considered as an "extension of the fuel tank". As to the height of the pump above the fuel tank....this is always a consideration BECAUSE these small diaphragm pumps are very weak in the suction aspect of pump performance....but in the application on a lawn or garden tractor you would really not have a problem because in most cases the pump only has to "lift" the fuel something less than 10". As to the size of tank vent........so long as the vent allows air to enter the tank at a rate that matches (or exceeds) the rate at which the fuel is being drawn out of the tank....increasing the vent size will not increase pump performance. Having too large a vent can lead to dirt and debris entering tank or fuel sloshing out of tank. I visited the website of your link and the fact that they included a warning not to use this filter with fuel injection systems supports the idea that it is a suction filter. I noticed that it has 5/16" hose nipples, does your tractor have 5/16" hose? Lastly, you DO NOT want to situate your filter between the pump and carburetor because then you lose the benefit of keeping the "crud" out of the fuel pump.