Finishing our Earth Sheltered Home

The following spring we had to address the front of our earth sheltered home. The dirt we had put on top of the insulation became a huge mess. We were debating between More »

Our Earth Sheltered Home Build Part 7

This is the final post on the construction of our earth sheltered home. It was fun to go back over the pictures and to remember everything we did to get to this More »

Our Earth Sheltered Home Part 6

We had just a few more things to finish on the outside of our earth sheltered home. Fall was coming and we needed to get a move on before the snow started More »

Our Earth Sheltered Home Part 5

The next day I fed the power supply into our Earth sheltered home.  We were getting pretty excited to almost be able to start moving on to finishing the interior. Unfortunately there More »

Our Earth Sheltered Home Part 4

This is a continuation of our earth sheltered home. I started pulling wire, I hate pulling wire, especially with all the angles we have within the studs. and labeled all the wires More »

Our earth sheltered home part 3

This is a continuation of our earth sheltered home, I forgot how much work this actually was! We started framing out the doorways to the bathroom and pantry and started framing out More »

Our Earth Sheltered Home part 2

Over the weekend we worked on our earth sheltered home some more, I bought some 8 inch block and used that to raise the walls on the shed. The blocks never seemed More »

Our Earth Sheltered Home

This is how we built our earth sheltered home. In 1995 my wife had surgery on her shoulder, while she was in surgery I went down to the bookstore to pick up More »

Our Earth Sheltered Greenhouse

Here is how we built a earth sheltered greenhouse. After our fiasco with our pit greenhouse my wife and I were looking for a plan B. My wife’s father had spent several More »

 

Generator Propane Conversion

genny

We decided to attempt a generator propane conversion, after seeing what happened after hurricane sandy, we decided it was best.  We finally received the conversion kit in the mail the other day and decided to attempt it.

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this is the company we ordered our kit from, they were very helpful and e-mailed me several times for clarification on what we needed

http://www.propane-generators.com/

biggest question they had was the make and model number for our motor, we have a husky with a subaru engine, the model can be found on the tag on the side of the engine, as you can see on the bottom of the tag we have a robin ex30

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we started by using the regulator for the engine and marked out mounting holes for it

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and then drilled them out

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we removed the air filter cover

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and the air filter itself

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we opened the bag of supplied parts

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and started putting together the carb adapter

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We bolted down the regulator onto the frame through the holes we had drilled out

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we screwed down the engine inlet onto the regulator and the propane feed line onto the regulator

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we removed the mounting bolts for the air filter and replaced them with the supplied spacer bolts for the carb block and mounted that

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we tried remounting the air filter assembly over the block but with the increased space we could not clear the down tube of the genny, I looked at my dad and said we need to cut the down tube, he responded no we don’t want to do that, we will just trim the air filter , so my dad broke out his roto tool

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and he trimmed out the outer edge of the air filter to give us clearance

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with the air filter housing trimmed we were able to fit it onto the carb block

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we remounted the vacume hose onto the air filter

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and connected the gas line from the regulator to the carb block

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we screwed down the tank regulator onto the tank hose

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and connected the hose to the engine regulator

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since the spacing was so close with even cutting out the air filter we could not attach the air filter cover

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so we popped the air filter in place and used a rubber band to hold it in place

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we hooked up the propane tank

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and we were ready to fire it up

to start the genny on propane you turn the gas on the tank and there is a prime button on the back of the regulator to drain the air out, you can see it here right above the brass fitting

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our first firing

my father was adjusting the set screw in the front of the regulator trying to get the right air/fuel mixture

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we started messing with the tank and was able to get a good fuel mixture by almost turning down the propane feed and we were able to get it running perfectly with playing with the tank, something still wasn’t right

we reread the manuals and couldn’t find anything, well actually we did, remember when I said we needed to cut the down tube?

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my father doesn’t want to talk about this

anywho, my dad hopped on line and found out he was adjusting the wrong thing, the set screw in the front of the regulator isn’t it

it’s the brass t-fitting on top with the bolt and the lock nut on it,

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once you get it running you loosen the set nut and adjust the bolt till you get it idling where you want to, you then tighten the lock nut to secure the setting. We adjusted that and now it purrs like a kitten. Also make sure you run it with the choke set to run not start.

We went with the dual fuel kit so we would still be able to run gas as well as propane. The price was only 30 dollars more I believe but if you go with just propane you have to tap into the carb so you couldn’t go back to gas without buying a new carb. Any questions fire away.

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3 Responses to Generator Propane Conversion

  1. morotetsuke morotetsuke says:

    4.7 gallons of propane in a grill tank at roughly $2.40 per gallon.

    wonder how long it lasts under load?

  2. Joseph says:

    Nice pictures,

    Just did a similar conversion. Instead of cutting back the plastic/metal air filter cut the generator support. It is not as pretty but the filter is important and a steel brace was easy to cut and bolt on. I used a steel L that gives it more strength and is pre-drilled every half inch or so. Cut it in 30 seconds with a power tool. Could even mount the regulator on the L brace but it poked out too much then. Good luck to all. Instructions in these kits are vague to avoid potential lawsuits.

    • Kvr28 Kvr28 says:

      Thanks Joseph, agreed, the directions could be a little better. We are debating about whether or not to cut the downtube and trying to find a replacement cover. It is very important to keep water out of the carb, but we have a generator room where this sits so it’s never out in the weather. Other issue is we can’t find a cover anywhere, so I am going to try and JB weld it back together

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