3 Way Fridge Propane Problem

[ventura67]

Hi all,

We bought our 2004 Starcraft last spring.  We took it on its first trip and did not discover that the Dometic 3 way fridge did not work on propane until we were at camp (silly me for not testing it before we left).  Later in the trip we found one of the only two RV shops in the U.P. and they got it working.  They said they pulled the burner apart and cleaned out an insect cacoon in some certain part and it worked great the rest of the trip.

So, having learned my lesson, I pulled the camper out before next week's trip to test the fridge and again it will not light on propane.  Can anyone tell me what they might have cleaned that first time and where I might find a diagram of how to pull it apart and do it myself?

Yes, there's propane in the tank and gas to the other accesories.  In fact, I can get a short lived flame in the burner roughly 1 out of 10 tries, it is behaving like it did before last summer's problem was fixed so I'm hoping it's the same thing.

Thank you!

['tiredTeacher]

Hi all,
Can anyone tell me what they might have cleaned that first time and where I might find a diagram of how to pull it apart and do it myself?

Thank you!

Go here http://www.dometicusa.com/refrigerators.php?id=single and download the parts list. Go to page 8 and scroll down to part#110. That's the burner orifice that needs to be removed and cleaned. Do not enlarge the orifice. The whole burner section should be cleaned and the diffuser (part #102) inside the burner removed and cleaned.

[austinado16]

Try lighting it with a BBQ ignitor's flame, rather than just the spark ignitor and see if that helps you at least get it going.

There's a whole "air flow" and "fuel-to-air-ratio" thing that goes on with the burner and chimney assembly on these fridges.

If you really want to dig into the problem and forever be the master of your fridge, it's not a very steep learning curve and requires few tools.

If it were mine, I'd check to make sure I had the proper amount of propane pressure at the fridge.  There's a fitting there for plugging in a propane pressure tester (called a Manometer) and you want to see 11" water column pressure on the gauge.  Gauges are expensive, but you can make your own for just a few dollars and maybe 30min work.  I can email you some photos of mine.

So if you've got 11"w/c pressure, then you'd know it wasn't a propane issue, and you could move on to:
1) the burner oriface
2) the burner tube (that metal sleeve that the flame comes out of)
3) the chimney (the big vertical can shaped thing above the flame)
3) the balance tube (the corrogated paper/foil tube that runs vertical next to the chimney
4) the balance pipe (the metal tube at the top of the chimney and balance tube that connects the 2 together at the top.

The deal is: bugs and spiders like to build nests in all of these tubes.  Blow them out with compressed air (see......now you get to buy a nice little air compressor) and then try the lighting process again.

If you really want to dig in, you can go inside the camper and unscrew the fridge from the cabinet and slide it out, and then inspect and manually clean everything.

[austinado16]

Here's a shot of the typical fridge back. This is my Dometic 2 way, so yours will be a little different being a newer model, and 3 way.  But you get the idea.

Over on the right edge of the photo, you see the corrogated balance air tube.  Then just behind it, is the big chimney, and down at the bottom you see the metal box that houses the burner tub.  On the front of the metal box is a metal window that swings out of the way so you can light by hand, or inspect your flame quality.