Atwood sealed burner range problem (and fix)

[JohnB]

Fellow Campers

Need some help on where to look for this problem. The air/LP gas ratio is not right on my Atwood sealed burner range. I’m getting a lot of white in with the blue flame and I have one burner that poof’s and I can hear it burning underneath while still burning at the burner on top. I shut it off quick but I need to figure this issue out. While only 1 burner has the black flash problem, all 3 have the air/gas ratio issue.

There are no air ratio adjustment venturie on this sealed burner model like my other campers and gas stoves have had.

See here in the pic’s

This stove top.


The model


The problem on hi output


The problem on lo output


The soot from the back flash on the one burner


The valve manifold with no air tube adjustments


The gas regulator side


The gas jet below the burner housing


How do you adjust out of this?

Or is this dirt in the brass jet below the burner causing this?

Or the 10” W.C. regulator being slightly low. I do have a manometer I can check it with, but wanted to ask here first.

Thanks

John

[Poppy & Nana]

John we had the problem as you described on our 07 2499 and it turned out that the little white ignitors/resistors where defective....it was repaired under warranty and took all of 10 minutes to replace them "resistors".....we have not had a problem since!

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Poppy & Nana

John we had the problem as you described on our 07 2499 and it turned out that the little white ignitors/resistors where defective....it was repaired under warranty and took all of 10 minutes to replace them "resistors".....we have not had a problem since!

Kathy

Thanks for the info. I hear what you are saying, but cannot figure out how that will affect the flame. Yes it can affect the starting of the flame for sure, but our some times get's worse over time. Like when cooking pancakes. By the 2nd batch I have this issues. It does not all start this way, after burning a while it comes.

What was your actually doing and in what sequence? It might help me figure out if what you have is what I have. And even if it isn't, it is still good info to know for future.

Thanks

John

[JohnB]

Well here is the progress, still not there “yet”. Had to shovel 3" of snow this AM and the sun dried up the concrete to allow me to pull out the camper and work on it in the yard. If it was not snow mess out, we would be been camping this weekend for sure. Sun all day and no wind. About 28 to 32 F.

I took the burners off and looked up in them. Focused on the worst one that had the bottom flash back. There is no large blockage. See here.


Burner removed


Another view. This worst one I labeled burner 1. I also labeled the others so I can keep track of this.


And a view by the electrode


I did soak then in apple cider vinegar for ~ 8 hours to see if it would take out anything. What came out in the liquid was what looked like small little flakes of porcelain.


Here they are after the soak. The same burner # 1


And up top view




So at the moment what I have is clean. Will try on Sunday. I did do a pressure check on the regulator. I pulled the fuse on the electric igniter first. Then set up the manometer. Here is what I have, a homemade one.


A good tight fit at the valve manifold


And a confirmed “0” to start with.


First full pressure: Right on 10” WC. I redid this 3 times. 2 where on 10” and one was 10 1/2 “ WC. So this is a little drift.


I also started up the oven pilot. It dropped ~ 9 ¼ “ WC.


With the main oven burner on, it dropped to 8 ½ “ WC. And it came back to 9 ½ when just on pilot and back to 10” when the oven was off.


So there is some drift on the regulator. The question is, how much drift should this regulator have?


When I took the burner gas tube off the manifold I noticed it was loose on the nozzle tip fitting. I gave it a little yank and off it came. This seemed real odd. Would of thought they would have been swedged in. So while it was apart I held the jet up to a light and can see right thru it. I did put a small drop of red lock tight very fine and held back from the end of the tube and reinserted.




Does anyone have normal operating specs on this regulator? I know it is not 0 droop, but is 1 1/2 “WC with the oven on a problem? I have a new spare but did not want to tear into this unless the reading is not normal.

When I put this back together on Sunday I will leave the burners out with the top on and see if the jet lines up in the middle of the hole so I can make sure the jet is where it is suppose to be.

Just thought of something after Poppy and Nana’s note. . This problem is not right at the start. This occurs sometimes after ~ 5 minutes of use. Then once it is there, you turn it on and off and it is there instantly. Like today, I started it up cold, nice blue flame. But I know I have done this before and after the 2nd batch of cooking pancakes, I have mixed flame and then the number one burner starts black flashing underneath. H'mm problem over time. Is this pointing to the regulator?

I’ll keep you posted as the progress goes.

Thanks

John

[JohnB]

Fellow Sunliners I have found the problem and have corrected it. If yours is a sealed burner unit. This may help if you run into this type of problem.

Now to the events of the day. I spent about $1.00 on the vinegar and I have nice clean burners, but that in itself did not cure the problem. It was a good thing to do, but the alignment was the main culprit. As far as time, I’m glad I was not paying for “my” time. I fiddled around a good 3 hours yesterday and about the same today.

Now to the events of the day in pictures.

Before I assembled the burners I put the cover on less the burners and looked down the hole. WOW. Holy moly…. H’mm this is not going to work.

See burner 1 that had the flash back.


And the left one.


The master burner was as bad. All 3 where way off. Next issue was, how to correct this? I could not even force the cover to get all 3 to line up. So I started looking close on if there is any adjustment on the locking pin up front. Nope, not that I could find. This front pin when it drops in that hole places the burners about 3/32 off. And this part if all fixed along with the gas manifold. I even tried it behind the hole as my older camper Atwood, but not sealed burners, had a lip in place of the pin. But using the back cut out with the pin shifted every thing to far back. I saw no choice except to put the pin where it needed to, to allow the burner holes to line up. So I filed a slot.




So now look at burner 1, the flash back one. Now in the center. And so is the far left one.


And the front master burner. Better but not perfect. Remember this as we will come back to it.


So now that I had them center, how was I going to keep them centered? H'mm I push on the cover near the back and I can move this cover quite a bit and knock it back out of alignment. So I added a stop strip wedged between the 2 hinges. Now there is no movement left to right and it will hold alignment. I'll stain this strip later to match the cabinets.


Now when you put the burners in, from the bottom, center the burner in the hole as you can move them around a fair bit.


And now I lit this up. Yes!!!! The back 2 are great.


Here is burner # 1 that use to flash back on hi.


And on simmer. I could never go this low before.


The back 2 worked great thru the full range. But the front master burner has issues when I turned it up. It would simmer blue but went white when I went about 1/2 way on.


So I said, well the master burner align was not perfect and the master burner jet is larger so the air mixture must be more sensative. So now knowing alignment must be dead on, I loosened up the burner screws, put the cover down and fired it up. See here where I pushed the burner fully to the back. Totally out of proper gas/air mixture. Turned it down quick.


Then with a pair of tongs I pushed the burner fully to the front. Night and day difference in just the play in the mounting holes. But still not right. And this was only on 5 on the dial.


Now knowing the problem, I took the burner back off, put the cover down and filed the slot some more to get the master burner exactly dead on and the other 2. I even measured where the front of the stove is suppose to be when assembled as you cannot tell when you put it all back together.


Put it all back together and tried it again. Now I have success. As you can see on Hi, there is a trace of white in the flame tips. But I can turn it down 1 number to 9 and it is total blue. I cannot cook on Hi as the flame is too large so this is as good as I can get it.


So to make sure I felt I cured it, I brewed a pot of coffee on the original problem child burner, the far right one that use to flash. Now no issues.


Alignment on this type of burner is dead critical. 1/32” off can be too much. The regulator was OK and I left it. I assume dropping 1 1/2" WC with the oven burner on must be OK. I bought this camper used last fall. So with what I had to do to get this corrected must have been there a long time. With the front cover hole being that far off, I cannot imagine how it ever worked exactly right.

What I presented was one way to correct alignment. There may be others and if anyone runs into a better way, please pass it along.

I’m cooking with gas now…

John

[Poppy & Nana]

John - sorry I did not get back to you sooner....been a weekend from HE$$!

Anyway - our little white "resistors" were part of our problem and they other was alignment.....we brought ours to a local Atwood "repair facility" and had it repaired under warranty.

We would get FLASH under one of the burners (left rear if I remember correctly) and fluctuating flame on the other two burners.....cause by misalignment......if the left rear worked as it should have we would have had fluctuating flame on that one as well,, per the service repairman.

Glad you were able to fix the burners and have a nice cup o' JOE in the TT!

Your description of repairs is always greatly appreciated and so are the photos!

[BobNKaren]

I had the same problem, but mine was caused by IO “idiot operator”. I had the whole stovetop replaced because of the porcelain flaking off. Sunline shipped me a new top and I installed it my self and it worked perfect until the big spill. After the clean up I had the same type of flames that you had. Went through all burners cleaning that you did but no help. I had the burners out just as you did and I noticed the off set of the gas jet in relation to the hole where the burners went. Had the top up and down a bunch of times to try and figure out why the misalignment. On one of the closings everything matched up. Ponder ponder at least one tall cold one. I slowly raised the top cove and it sprung back about 3/16 of an inch. Did some close looking and found that I was missing seating the guide pin in the hole. I don’t know why you had to file a grove to get the alignment, only thing I can think of is that the front control panel got sprung and to compensate you had to file a grove. This alignment is critical for good burner combustion. I also did some fine-tuning on one of the burners by leaving it loose and moving it for the best flame. Marked the spot and tightened the nuts. Almost perfect, how much time can you spend?

[JohnB]

Originally Posted by BobNKaren

I don’t know why you had to file a grove to get the alignment, only thing I can think of is that the front control panel got sprung and to compensate you had to file a grove. This alignment is critical for good burner combustion. I also did some fine-tuning on one of the burners by leaving it loose and moving it for the best flame. Marked the spot and tightened the nuts. Almost perfect, how much time can you spend?

Bob

I bought this camper used so I do not know if it ever worked right. Just I know it never did for me until now.

There was no way to get all 3 burners in alignment unless the front moved forward, thus the groove filing. I agree something was bent in the front panel, but on this model that meant tearing the entire front of the stove apart and attempting to straighten it. The front panel is all part of the front of the range. Figured I would do more harm then good so the slot was born.

Time I spent. A lot. The good part of an afternoon across 2 days as I could not find anyone that had the exact same stove/problem until I bumped into a tip off of RV.net on alignment. Now that I know what to look for, the next time will be a lot faster. Like about 1 to 2 hours max.

The key to this type of burner is dead on alignment so the air will mix right. 1 burner is easy, 2 burners not bad. All 3, not always an easy task and do not lean on it as it will move again. This design cover setup leaves a lot to be desired. It will never go back in the same place twice. I overcame it with the wood block filler.

Key is understanding what you want to end up with, then just keep at it until you get it.

John