1988 Majorca Elpaso M-20-E W/pics of pilot light soot-HELP!?

westend wrote:
Remove the entire burner pipe and pilot tubing, along with the wire that attaches to the thermocouple. There are two captive fasteners on the bottom of the gas valve to loosen and you'll also have a couple of sheet metal screws to remove that hold the burner assembly in place. Do not cut the wire. Do not adjust any of the screws on the gas valve. That is above your paygrade and will probably mess things up.

After you have the burner assembly in your hands and removed from the water heater, look on the end of the burner pipe. There will be a small brass orifice there with hex sides. Remove this orifice and soak it with carb cleaner, dilute ammonia or other cleaner. Blow compressed air backward from delivery direction through the orifice. You should be able to see daylight through the small hole.

Clean out the burner tube and lightly sand the thermocouple (the cylinder on the end of the pilot tube where the wire attaches). Reassemble, making sure the thermocouple is in the path of the pilot flame. Try ignition and adjust the air mixture baffle (the steel clamp that is attached to the burner tube with a machine bolt and nut) until flame is nearly all blue. You should have no soot after this.

You could also just do the last step, adjust the air mixture baffle, but that water heater is in sore need of a good cleaning.

Thank-you very much for those instructions its kind of late and I just got home so I'll be given this a go tmrw and report back.

turbojimmy wrote:

westend wrote:
the air mixture baffle (the steel clamp that is attached to the burner tube with a machine bolt and nut)

Is that factory? It looked hokey to me.

Probably factory OEM. It only needs to be adjusted once, typically, so you don't need a real sophisticated mechanism.

BTW, spraying the fasteners with a rust penetrant before working on that heater may prove to save a lot of effort. I know mine were rusted up fairly well.

westend wrote:
the air mixture baffle (the steel clamp that is attached to the burner tube with a machine bolt and nut)

Is that factory? It looked hokey to me.

Remove the entire burner pipe and pilot tubing, along with the wire that attaches to the thermocouple. There are two captive fasteners on the bottom of the gas valve to loosen and you'll also have a couple of sheet metal screws to remove that hold the burner assembly in place. Do not cut the wire. Do not adjust any of the screws on the gas valve. That is above your paygrade and will probably mess things up.

After you have the burner assembly in your hands and removed from the water heater, look on the end of the burner pipe. There will be a small brass orifice there with hex sides. Remove this orifice and soak it with carb cleaner, dilute ammonia or other cleaner. Blow compressed air backward from delivery direction through the orifice. You should be able to see daylight through the small hole.

Clean out the burner tube and lightly sand the thermocouple (the cylinder on the end of the pilot tube where the wire attaches). Reassemble, making sure the thermocouple is in the path of the pilot flame. Try ignition and adjust the air mixture baffle (the steel clamp that is attached to the burner tube with a machine bolt and nut) until flame is nearly all blue. You should have no soot after this.

You could also just do the last step, adjust the air mixture baffle, but that water heater is in sore need of a good cleaning.

beemerphile1 wrote:
Clean the burner,
clean the flue,
check and adjust the LPG pressure,
adjust the flame.

I'm not sure what any of that is or how to do that. I came in here hoping to get instructions. I'm not home yet but I plan on watching the YouTube video posted above and the suggestions and hopefully will be able to figure it out.

Clean the burner,
clean the flue,
check and adjust the LPG pressure,
adjust the flame.

Thanks il look at this video and go mess with it here in a bit and post back what happens. Thanku very much

The burner tube is the thing that's connected to the valve (the thing that says "UNITROL" on it).There should be a sleeve on it with slots that control the amount of air that the flame gets. Too much air and you get an orange flame and lots of soot. It looks like someone tried to improvise by clamping that piece of metal around the tube with that nut and bolt. That doesn't look like a factory arrangement. In the second pic you can see the gap into the tube. I'd try to close it off as much as you can and see if you get a decent flame. You should have very little orange in the flame and if you do it would be way out at the end.

EDIT: This is obviously a different model, but it shows how it's supposed to work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSjDklZh4ws

nickthehunter wrote:
There should be a slotted fitting on the end of the gas line to the main burner. It needs to be adjusted to a nice blue flame.

Ok so I'm a moron when it comes to this stuff. I'm a computer guy. So on the last picture if u zoom in u can see a flathead screw by the word "hot" and then on the underside is which u can't see directly below the flathead screw is an Allen screw, are those adjustments? Which is the Gas line, and which is the main burner, and what do u mean by sloyted fitting? I really need some detail here.

There should be a slotted fitting on the end of the gas line to the main burner. It needs to be adjusted to a nice blue flame.