I don't know anything about running generators at a certain RPM, but 3600 is going to be pretty loud and pretty obnoxious after a while. Any method you could come up with (gears... transmission... somebody said something about poles on the generator???) to run 1800 instead of 3600 RPM would go a LONG way toward making this a more practical machine after you build it.

Also, is the engine's water pump strong enough to circulate coolant the distance from the generator to the house heating equipment and back with enough leftover capacity to ensure the engine is being cooled enough. Something to think about is that water pumps do fail, leak, whatever from time to time, and perhaps it would be worth looking into building some sort of safety for that, sort of like a low oil pressure shutoff, so that when the circulation system finally fails, the engine won't toast itself during the interval between when it dies and when you finally notice the house isn't getting warm anymore.

Since the speed of the engine is mechanically governed by the accelerator pedal and associated linkages and things and most 240s don't have tachs, I'm not sure how convenient or easy it's going to be to rig up a governor to keep the RPM constant to run the generator. When you do figure that out, would it be possible to tie some sort of low oil/low coolant engine shutoff safety feature into that mechanism? If it's already connected to the IP linkages somehow then it might be easy enough to have the thing shove the stop lever instead of throttling up when it detected those conditions.

If I was going to the expense of building this thing, (I agree with those that are saying the return on the investment is going to be a while showing up; you'd have to REALLY like alternative energy to go to this much trouble) -- I'd want a few of these safeties I'm talking about to keep it from exploding itself -- and I'd definitely not be able to stand hearing a 3600 RPM diesel roaring away constantly any time my house needed electricity. 1800 wouldn't be so bad.


Just my if-it-was-mine two cents. It's not my project.

__________________


~Michael S.~
Past cars:

1986 300SDL
1987 300SDL
1982 240D
1982 300SD


Current:

1987 300SDL