T&T: 7.5 KVA Onan genset Salt Water Pump

[Jake2124 at aol.com]

I have one of these 25 year old boat shaker gensets that just keeps on  
gennin. I have had the boat for about 5 years, but run the gen set seldom,  except 
once every couple of weeks to once a month for a half hour or so. I  am 
ing.not sure what that does, but the ONAN service people said to do that.  Anyway, 
recently I have been running it a lot, several hours a day. Yesterday it  was 
running fine for several hours, then shut off.  It must have a  self 
preservation sensor, as it was a little hot, just a few second of steam. I  traced the 
water path, and determined that the sea water pump was not  working. I removed 
it and took out the impeller, which looked just fine. As it  turned out, the 
center drive had de bonded from the impeller, so the vanes were  not turning. I 
had a spare, replaced it, not it is running fine. Now to my  question:
 
Is this a common occurrence? 
 
Are some brands of impellers less prone to this failure?
 
Is there something I can do to prevent this from happening again. The total  
hours on this impeller was only around 30 or 40 hours, but it was a couple of  
years old. Still very pliable, no vanes broken, cracked or damaged.
 
Also, I have read somewhere, maybe on this list, that some folks have  
plumbed in a March Air Conditioner Centrifugal pump because of frequent failure  of 
the impeller pump. Anyone out there who has done that? And does that solve  
the problem?
 
Thanks
 
Jake



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