My refrigerator extinguishes while driving, . . .

[Prober22]

Hi Folks,
Long time no post. We just get busy. I have sold my business, and have 51 days of work left.
I have a Lance 835, which has a Norcold N402.3 refrigerator. In my driveway, it will run flawlessly on LP. If I take it for a drive, the refrigerator goes out. I think it must he the wind, but I am not sure.
I recall reading about making a wind "baffle" out of aluminum foil that might cure this.
My two main concerns about the "baffle" are:
1. Asphyxiating myself
2. Burning my rig down to the pavement.

Have any forum members tried this? Does it work?
Can you describe what you did? I'd owe you big! In a couple weeks, I am going to Rapid City, then hit Devil's Tower, Custer Battlefield and then do the Bear Tooth Pass. Eventually, I'LL meet my boys in the Big Horns for some trout fishing.
If I can get this fridge to stay lit, It would make things a lot simpler.
Thanks in advance!
Regards,
Jeff

[abnengr]

I had the same problem with my 835. the flame would blow out while passing trucks. I put a small piece of gutter tin on the inside of the access cover to block the lower vents and the flame never blew out again. Note: even covering the lower vent holes still allows enough ventilation and keeps heat build up to minimum.

[Prober22]

Thank You All!
For all the good information. I slid the little metal cover off of the burner chamber observation port. The flame is a beautiful, non-flickering blue color, so I am not going to mess with cleaning the orifice, . . . for now. I will try the furnace filter fix, and tape over the front half of the lower row (of the three) of ventilation holes in the exterior refrigerator cover.

Then, I'll take her for a spin, and see what happens. I will post my results.
Best Wishes,
Jeff

[jimh406]

Be ready to be afraid. There are even propane powered vehicles. 😉 Maybe they have their propane turned off though.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/propane.html

[NRALIFR]

HMS Beagle wrote:

stratcat wrote:
why would you use propane while driving. This very dangerous and against the law in most states. You are basically driving a gas bomb. if for some reason you are involved in an accident the complete rig could explode. Use the 12 volt that's why it is there......

Could you provide documentation for that claim? It is not illegal in California to drive with the propane on and powering the refrigerator as far as I know. In fact you can power your truck with propane if properly converted. I also cannot see how having an accident while the propane was powering the refrigerator would be any more or less dangerous than 12V. The only place I know if where propane cannot be used is on the Washington and Alaska state ferries.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that documentation because there isn't any. The only places that it's illegal are ferries, tunnels, and the Chessapeak Bay bridge/tunnel.

While LP systems years ago weren't as safe as they are today, the modern LP system has many safety features built into it and it actually quite hard to cause an explosion with one. You can't argue with a gas-o-phobe though. To them an LP bottle will always be a bomb looking for an excuse to explode. More drama that way.

For the life of me I can't understand how those who believe LP is so dangerous can still manage to sleep in an RV with LP appliances in it.

:):)

[Aquanut]

Mine tries to start 3 times. After the third time it goes into lockout mode. To unlock it you have to use a jumper,wire to "short" out the system and reset the board. Lockout out mode shuts off the gas and also the spark

[Kayteg1]

Usual program is that the computer board will try restarting the flame 3 or 5 times in next couple of minutes and then red light comes on.
That is additional danger of the system. Even if you turn-off the propane entering gas station, you still have sparks flying.

[covered_wagon]

Aquanut wrote:
The flame on my refrigerator blows out at speeds above 60 mph. My refrigerator automatically shuts off the gas when the flame goes out. I'm surprised that's not the norm

Then mine would constantly try and relight itself putting wear on the circuit board components.

When I wire brushed the flame orifice back to new condition everything was just fine. I know this from my destination being a two day run each way, twice a year, for the last 6 years.

[Kayteg1]

I am another one who runs fridge on 12V when on the road.
This way I don't have those bad feelings when I forget to turn the flame off while fueling and having propane off at the tank I feel safer.
Driving Ford, I don't have to worry about fridge running down the truck batteries, but heard other brands might need a relay.

[Aquanut]

The flame on my refrigerator blows out at speeds above 60 mph. My refrigerator automatically shuts off the gas when the flame goes out. I'm surprised that's not the norm

[HMS_Beagle]

stratcat wrote:
why would you use propane while driving. This very dangerous and against the law in most states. You are basically driving a gas bomb. if for some reason you are involved in an accident the complete rig could explode. Use the 12 volt that's why it is there......

Could you provide documentation for that claim? It is not illegal in California to drive with the propane on and powering the refrigerator as far as I know. In fact you can power your truck with propane if properly converted. I also cannot see how having an accident while the propane was powering the refrigerator would be any more or less dangerous than 12V. The only place I know if where propane cannot be used is on the Washington and Alaska state ferries.

[stratcat]

why would you use propane while driving. This very dangerous and against the law in most states. You are basically driving a gas bomb. if for some reason you are involved in an accident the complete rig could explode. Use the 12 volt that's why it is there......

[covered_wagon]

Okay the votes go for blocking wind. I must add that I opted not doing that when my frige had this problem because suppose you block in too much unlite propane gas and then tries to relite? Would you have the potential for an explosion? After cleaning the burner/ orifice my frige worked flawlessly at 60/65 mph. Without blocking the wind.

This one example of why I decided a long time ago to think for myself and do what is best.

[whizbang]

+1 What Chuck and Di said.

[Chuck_and_Di]

On my first camper I tried to solve this problem. It's a design issue on refrigerators that have a manually lit pilot, and nothing to do with dirty orifices (although that might aggravate the problem). The design problem is getting a proper airflow through the cooling coils and to enable combustion, without having so much airflow the pilot blows out. I tried putting a furnace filter over the access cover, taping the lower third of the cover, and putting a wind baffle in front of the chimney cap on the roof. All these things helped somewhat. The roof baffle helped the most. But I could always find a situation that caused it to blow out - traveling a bit faster than usual, bad cross wind, passing trucks speeding in the opposite direction. In the end, I ran it on 12V while driving.
I now have a more modern designed fridge that ignites on it's own (no manual lit pilot required). I'm sure it blows out occasionally going down the road, but re-lights as required. Things are certainly still cold / frozen when I get to camp. I suspect you'll come to the same conclusion - 12V, or a new self-lighting unit.

[covered_wagon]

If it was fine running down the road before and then begins to go out all the time and never used too, chances are the orifice needs careful wire brushing the carbon off of it.