RE: Furnace not igniting

[jackgoesthepopup]

 
in our camper we just got . I am checking out the furnace and the igniter does not seam to be working . The blower comes on when you move the thermostate . What i am wanting to know is . Does anyone know the approximate resistance on the igniter so i can check to see if it is still good. Also is the igniter a arching type or the heating element type. I removed it and it appears to be the arching type. And does anyone know where i can get a wiring diagrahm for the furnace.

[GaryWT]

 jackgoesthepopup
I believe most are the arching type.  Mine will click 3 times and if there is no gas it stops.  I then have to start from the beginning.  Once the gas is there I am set.  I am not sure of the resistance but I would think you get it from the manufacture, check to see if they have a website.

[tlhdoc]

 jackgoesthepopup
Do you have the gas turned on?  If the gas is on did you bleed the air out of the gas lines?  Just a couple of things you might want to check.

[jackgoesthepopup]

 jackgoesthepopup
Yeah i made sure the gas was getting to the furnace. I also noticed it s a forced draft . So I am also wandering if the air preasure switch is bad. I run a power plant and we run 2, 500 horsepower boilers and 3, 15000 horse power boilers. I have no problem working on them .But thease little things can drive you nuts sometimes. It could be the igniter or the coil or the board. Or a switch. I looked for a web site and all i get is retail sales companys. I fiquired if anyone would have a answer for it would be here on the boards.  I am going to go grab the amprobe and go play with it. If anyone sees a big fireball coming from the direction of st. louis. You will know i made a big boo boo. Just bring hotdogs and marshmellows. LOL.

[rccs]

 jackgoesthepopup
I had trouble with the furnace in my Coleman a couple of years ago with it not lighting also. I talked with a person from a camping supply wholesale place we did buisness with at the time and he told me to bend the arching probes in the furnace down slightly so they were more in the stream of gas in the furnace when it tried to light and to adjust them so that they were about the thickness of a penny apart. I did this to my furnace and it has worked perfectly ever since.
 

[garym053]

 jackgoesthepopup
How about voltage to the furnace? I beleive that if the voltage is too low, the gas valve won t open but the ignitor still clicks through the cycle.

[griffsmom]

 jackgoesthepopup
You may have already checked this too, but just in case..there is an on/off switch in our heater that is located underneath the vent face plate where the heated air comes out.  In order to turn that switch on, we have to remove the metal vent face plate, flip the switch on and then put the face plate back on.  Just thought I d throw that out in case it might help.  Good luck with your heater!!  When you find out what it was, I hope you ll let us know...I ll be wondering about it until you do![]

[jackgoesthepopup]

 jackgoesthepopup
I started really pulling it apart today. I wanted to check to see if the printed circuit board had a fuse on it. I was looking on the internet for any thing i could find on it.The replacement boards all have a fuse in them. It looks like someone replaced the board. Because the wires goingt o it have been wire nuted together. But check this out. To get to the board you have to remove the furnace from under the the table seat. Then remove the heat exchanger from the furnace housing. I am almost ready to say forget about it and just get a electric heater. But now i am so frustraded about it  i have to find out why it is not working. I contaced the manufacter and they are going to send me owners manual for it. I thought that was a real nice thing for them to do. Heck I was suprised they even had one. Some one find me a sledge hammer i will fix it right.

[mike4947]

 jackgoesthepopup
Tim, and you thought it was going to be so great not sleeping on the ground. Welcome to the DIY fixit society.
 I have found most manufacturers of equipment for PU s are more than willing to send out owners manuals ( & sometimes even service manuals if you say pretty please) They figure it s in their best interest that you know how to operate their equipment and seeing as how most of it hasn t really changed much in the last 30 years they can get their hands on manuals we all think are antiquated.[]

[jackgoesthepopup]

 jackgoesthepopup
I know what you mean Mike. I contacted Holiday rambler to see if they had any manuals on the camper. For $15 bucks they are sending me one.  When i do get this furnace going I will let everyone know what it was. I will either cure it or kill it.

[topcat7736]

 jackgoesthepopup
Tim,
 
 You never said who manufactured the furnace you have in your trailer. But, while waiting for the manual, try looking [link=http://www.atwoodmobile.com/Service/Trouble/dsi.cfm]HERE[/link] at the Atwood troubleshooting guide.

[jackgoesthepopup]

 jackgoesthepopup
It s a Suburban furance. I should have said so eailer. I haven t had time to even lookat it in a couple of days . Hopefully i can get back to it this week. But summer is almost here. So I can take my time on it. But good news is that the A/C works great. I am lucky not to have to work on that. I will bet you that it uses R12 refrigerant. And one of my sons friends opened my last 30 pound tank of the stuff because he wanted to make a air tank out of the bottle. Have you priced R12 lately. i would have to go to the bank to get a loan to replace it.

[topcat7736]

 jackgoesthepopup
Tim,
 If the Atwood Q&A doesn t help, heres a link to Suburban (who doesn t give out much information). [link=http://www.rvcomfort.com/html/suburban/service/furnaces/questions.html]Suburban Q&A[/link]

[jackgoesthepopup]

 jackgoesthepopup
Oh i got the furnace out today. Has anyone ever sean that comercial for the bedroom store . Where the guy goes "  what were they thinking. To begin with there is no access panel to get to any of the componites ot the furnace with out first Removing the ouside air ducts that support the forced draft. To   work on it you then have to slide the entire heat exchanger out of the wind tunnel. And when i did that there was the wiring diagram. So far as near as i can tell the problem is that the gas selinold is not working. This is operated of the 12 dc side of the power differter. i am going to take the pc board out and bring it to work and have one of guys in the biomedical dept. check it out for me. But when i put it all back together. Belive me it will go in differant. I am going to make a access plate on the side of the wind tunnel. From a piece of 20 gauge galvinized metal. and make a door to accews this panel from the back of one end of the table seats so if i ever have to go in there again   i wont have to pull the whole thing apart. Some times i wonder what were thease guys were thinking when they designed this stuff. But it was properly done this way to make you have to go to the dealer for repair work. And having to pull the whole thing apart was just more laber involved. What took me 2 hours to do .Could have been done in 5 minutes with a access panel.