DON - Only thing I have against a diesel for "someone else" to run is a diesel doesn't like to run on gasoline. Granted they only burn at most HALF as much fuel for any given job so don't need fueling often, but if you've hung around any Dodge Cummins websites you KNOW hardly a week goes by when someone "GASSES" up their diesel pickup.
KEN - ONAN has been used in Tens of THOUSANDS of portable welder/generators, Lincoln, Miller, Hobart, etc, They ALL used Onan's, and to hold voltage & hertz they have to run at a constant RPM. The guy that rebuilt my Onan had rebuilt Hundreds of Onan's and He bored the cylinders, new pistons, rings, ground the crankshaft, new intake manifold, plugs, points, condensor, but what I think He didn't do, is the governor is a "RUBBER" Spider looking thing, with small maybe 1/4" to 3/8" dia ball bearings between the spider's legs as opposed to actual flyweights like old steam engines, farm tractors, and Kohler used. I think that old rubber spider somehow holds those ball bearings from moving properly and makes the governor sluggish. According to the service manual it's just like the Kohler, the last "servicable part" to be removed from the engine upon dissasembly. I think it's just MY Onan that's sluggish. When I was mowing the other day I was thinking if the Onan was running a welder and you struck an arc it would load it enough for the governor to kick in. But if your using it to run a generator, and turned on enough 100W light bulbs you could kill the engine!
I agree on the "no spark plugs". My buddy's 5020 Allis is a made in Japan "Toyosha", maybe another division of "Toyota"? It's a little 2-cyl. 19 HP water cooled engine. He mows as much lawn as I do, but TWICE on the same number of gallons of fuel. He has to watch the filter screen on the radiator, keep it real clean or it runs too hot.
I actually thought the old Deutz air-cooled diesels were a good engine. Someday I'll have to surf the 'Net and see if they ever made an engine small enough to fit in a 982. I know Porsche made little air-cooled tractors back after WW II. Guy who was Best Man at my wedding yrs ago used to use old Detroit diesel engines to run irrigation pumps, then switched to Deutz, all 345 CID in-line 6's. They used a co-axial multi-stage fan for cooling air, and the barrels & heads were finned like an air-cooled airplane engine. The cooling fans were run by matched sets of multiple V-belts. One night a belt broke, which caught and broke ALL the other belts, and the Hobbs Switch didn't work and the engine ran all night without cooling fans. Next morning the engine was still running, all six cylinder heads were glowing Orange hot, the tops of the cylinder barrels too. That engine eventually developed a need to add a quart of oil a night when making about 100 HP for 8-10 hours. A 3-53 or 4-53 DDA would slobber that much oil just idling that long!
And I agree, ANY diesel engine that's worth a darn should wear a TURBO.
