Water heater problem made worse

westend wrote:

Gjac wrote:

Chris Bryant wrote:
You can buy replacement coils for Suburban or Hydroflame, which work fine for the Atwood- it is Hydroflame p/n 3475 - the difference is it has quick disconnect terminals, not wires. It may be possible to repair the coil you have- it's just very fine wire you have to deal with.

Thanks for this info. It would be better than replacing the whole assy for $132. What I did was remove about 3/16 of the black plastic surrounding the broken wire. I then drilled into the copper wire that looked like a terminal embedded in the plastic I stripped and tinned the broken wire and inserted it into the terminal and solder it back together. I put some Goop around the soldered wire, re installed and it fired right up which I was very thankful. Has anyone else had a problem with that ground on the gas valve?

No, never had that issue but have pulled a wire or twenty out of a fixed terminal.
It appears, from the picture, that the two ground wires are part of the circuits that energize the magnetic coils. As long as the coils are functioning, I'd say--nice fix!
Having said that, there is a lot of elegance to just replacing the valve, it is a device designed for safety.

I posted this because I have been playing with this WH since I bought it. I think the water dripping from the PRV on the electrical contacts did not help either( replaceed PRV). Even after the new ingnighter was installed it worked for awhile then it needed multiple tries to get it to run. The board can be tested easily from the Atwood web site but that ground is hard to see. Hopefully this helps someone else with a similar problem. I try it every day just to hear it light on the first try, sounds nice.