Problem with air/fuel adjuster on 1989 Itasca Sunflyer.

[olywa1978]

Hi everyone, I posted my first question yesterday about a motor home I was thinking about purchasing (and DID purchase!), but now I am having difficulties with my moms motor home and need some advice.

She has a 1989 Itasca Sunflyer and is having some potentially dangerous problems with the hot water heater. She gets a ton of black soot coming out of the exhaust part and a strong odor that I can't describe and hasn't always been there. The flame is huge and orange. It's my understanding that the black soot means a likely blockage, insects, bees, something. Today I took apart the burner assemply and exhaust cover, verified that there were no blockages in the burner tubes, brushed the inside of the tube, cleaned the orifice with rubbing alcohol. I also blew into the hole where the flame goes in and an enormous amount of soot flew out of the exhaust side. I'm talking a good size black pile of soot on the ground! I connected everything, turned the hot water heater switch on and the flame is still huge, orange and has the black smoke (soot) coming from it. I adjusted the sleeve to give it more air and the flame did not respond at all. I slid the sleeve from side to side and the flame did absolutely nothing.

So what gives? All the research I come up with points to the air/fuel mixture, which I attempted to adjust and nothing. Is there something wrong with the sleeve? Something wrong with the orifice? The gas valve? I am out of ideas here, so any wisdom would be appreciated. Thanks!

[olywa1978]

Ok, thank you for the tip. I will pass it on to my mom, though she is very stubborn and insists that the air adjuster just needs to be adjusted carefully, which I've already tried numerous times, and, that nothing needs to replaced lol. Tough to reason with someone who just doesn't want to spend any money to fix the problem. I'll see what I can do. Thanks for your help!

[darsben]

olywa1978 wrote:
Yeah, the stove works fine. My uncle is the one that bought the motor home and said that when he got it the flame would not stay lit, so he unscrewed the orifice and cleaned behind it and screwed it back in, which fixed that problem and I asked him if he might have stuck anything in the orifice, which he could not remember. I'm wondering if the orifice might have gotten screwed up and maybe too much gas is going through it? Seems like an overload of gas output could cause the air/fuel mix issues and the inability to adjust the flame, am I right or no? Think I should go ahead and try to find a new orifice?

It will not hurt but sans the make and model of HW heater it is impossible to know if you can get the part.
If you cannot get the part you might try calling an RV salvage yard to see if they have a replacement water heater the exact same maodel

[olywa1978]

Yeah, the stove works fine. My uncle is the one that bought the motor home and said that when he got it the flame would not stay lit, so he unscrewed the orifice and cleaned behind it and screwed it back in, which fixed that problem and I asked him if he might have stuck anything in the orifice, which he could not remember. I'm wondering if the orifice might have gotten screwed up and maybe too much gas is going through it? Seems like an overload of gas output could cause the air/fuel mix issues and the inability to adjust the flame, am I right or no? Think I should go ahead and try to find a new orifice?

[darsben]

Does the stove operate normally?
I ask because if it has also got issues then maybe the regulator is bad