HELP with Espar heaters

Hello Brian. Thanks very much for the prompt reply. It may be bad news but you've saved me a lot of head scratching and messing about to no avail. Now I know what I'm dealing with, I think I'll try to get it off as I have nothing to lose. I assume its a solid shaft through the motor from where the the outer impeller fits to the inner plastic impeller? I'll clamp the shaft and see if I can move the impeller. I've noticed that there is already a bit of run out on the inner impeller/shaft/aluminium body and the tolerance that you quote is not as fine as it should be. That said, the heater appeared to be working fine before the motor packed up. If by some miracle I managed to get the impeller off and the motor repaired, what glue should I use to re-seat the impeller? I imagine it gets quite hot around that particular area. Thanks again for your reply and the benefit of your valuable expertise.

You're welcome. I have never taken the motor apart, but I would agree that it is a solid shaft. I would say just epoxy, as it does not take that much heat as the other component is between the heat exchanger and blower. Also the blower wheel is plastic after all. Heat is only a problem if the power is shut off to the heater while it is running, resulting in no cool down cycle.

Hello Brian. Thanks for your reply. The good news is that I was able to remove the plastic blower wheel from the shaft without damaging it. I clamped the opposite end of the shaft with a grip wrench and gently worked the blower wheel clock and anti-clock until the joint cracked and it eventually eased off the shaft. The problem with the motor turned out to be brushes and the curious thing was that the wrong ones had been fitted on a previous occasion which was the reason for the motor failure. This means that the blower wheel must have been been removed before.... I will use Araldite Epoxy to cement the wheel back on the shaft and reassemble the unit. I'll be sure to get the tolerance as tight as I can without any contact between the aluminium body and the blower wheel. Hopefully the faulty motor was the only problem and it will fire up as normal. Thanks again for all your help.

Hello Brian

I've had the motor serviced and repaired and I'm about to glue the fan back on the shaft with the required clearance. Can I just check this with you? When you said 0.011, is that mm or inches? If it is in thou. then 3 sheets of 80gsm copier paper with a long slot for the spindle should be about right! Thanks again for your kind help.

Wow, you got it apart! I have never tried it, just told you can't do it. But when faced with buying a new one I guess it is worth the effort. It is .011". Good luck !

Brian,

Hoping you can give me advice. I have an old Espar D7L. Can I upgrade from the universal switch, Cat. number: 25 1380 89 04 00 to a digital version in 12 volts? My old switch wanders several degrees F during cycles. At times it will remain on until I have to turn the heater off or dramatically lower the set temperature. I thought that upgrading to a digital version I would be able to operate the heater in a smaller temperature band with greater comfort. If I can upgrade, can you provide a suggestion? Thanks.

Ray

I have an espar D5L that starts, heats but after ten minutes cools down and shuts off. The red light is on solid and he green light is flashing. It stays that way and will not try to restart. It has been serviced annd the heat sensor replaced. It ran fine in the techs shop for aboout two hours. I just boat the boat approximately one year ago and it has worked this way sincce I purchased the boat. Getting frustrated, any ideas????

Ensueno Dave[/QUOTE]

Dave, a couple of things to try. Disconnect all ducting from heater. Intake and delivery. Turn on the heater. If you still get the quik flashing solid(overheating). Then it is not actually an overheat shutdown. If it now works fine then check for crushed ducting which may be restricting. Air flow.
If the removal of ducting does not change the overheat shutdown then I would suspect a bad solder on the pc board under the glow plug cover. Remove the cover and unplug the main harness, motor plug, overheat plug and flame sensor plug from the pc board. Slide it out and examine the underside solder points with a magnifying glass, or good eyes. It is common that the solder on the two pins of the overheat plug. Or the pins on the large main harness plug that carry the signal back to the ECU have become unsoldered. Don't know why it happens other than too much handling if the pc board, but I had this happen three days ago. If you find bad solder, usually a circle around the pin where it goes through the solder blob, you canrun resoldering it or replace the board. Usually you can find this also by starting the heater and moving the plugs slightly, some times it will shut down as you touch the plugs meaning you have open circuit the bad connection. This problem can sometimes be very intermittent so the temperature expands or contracts the tolerance between the pin and the solder break, also vibration as well.

Try this and let me know on the public forum so all can learn from this.

By the way. If the heater locks out due to too many overheated. It will just go dead and not try starting at all, you can unlock it by jumping terminals 4 and 6 under the lefthand cover of the thermostat and then turn on the on switch with the jumper in place. Hold it on for two seconds, and that will unlock the lockout. Alternatively. Pins 9and 11 on the black plug going into the bottom of the control box(ecu). Same sequence keep jumper in place and turn on thermostat. The cover of the thermostat has a slot in the bottom, stick a flathead screwdriver in it and twist, the. Over will pop off.

Ray. Yes you can. Use a Honeywell PRO 1000, or PRO 2000(programmable version). The thermostat has a red terminal, and a white terminal. Connect the red wire coming from the furnace (thermostat harness) to the red terminal, and the blue wire in the thermostat harness to the white terminal. The blue and red will be at the 8 pin plug near the end of the furnace, they may change colour on the other side of the plug on the universal switch side. One thing though, does your furnace runs. On high and low outputs, or just high? If the wires to the air intake solenoid have been snipped, then it runs on high only. High /off is how it should run as the low tends to carbon up the combustion chamber. You only need the two wires forbthe new thermostat. After you install it and turn it on make sure that when the glow plug cuts out that the fuel pump speeds up with the fan speed increase. If it does not then jump the pale mauve wire, at the 8 pin thermostat plug, to the brown wire in the same plug. This makes the heater run on high only when it runs. Leave that jumper in place. Make sense. If not send me a private message with your email and I can send you a diagram.

[FONT=&quot]Hi Brian; I posted last on Jan/9th. I finally found the heater, it is located in a very confined compartment under the quarter berth (which is enclosed), and is not taking air from outside or from the cabin, there is no hose and it takes the air from that small place.
I saw in the schematics that there is a "safety thermal cutout switch" (1.5) and before I change the thermostat, I wanted to ask you if it is possible that because of the temperature of the confined space, that switch shuts off, overriding the thermostat. Just to test it, I open the area and had it ventilated and the heater run longer than other times, and after a while went into a slower blower speed and after another while stopped, way bellow the thermostat setting.
In another test, I connected a duct directly from the cabin into the intake, but didn't make a difference, the air around the heater is too warm and I don't know if the cutout switch is internal or external.
What I want to know now is if there is something else that I need to solve, or changing the thermostat still the solution.....or that plus something else.
Thanks
Horacio[/FONT]

Hi there. I think the temp of the locker has something to do with it, but not with the safety thermal cut out switch. That would just shut the furnace down. I think because the thermostat is wrong, it is running on the internal temp sensor, which controls the heater output to keep the intake air at around 70 F
You still need to get that new thermostat.

Let me know what happens after that is done.

I have D2 and for awhile now I smell exhaust in cabin, its in my truck I know its not the right forum but still espar heater. Checked the 4 screws holding heater and rubber seal seems intact, any ideas how exhaust gas is getting inside?

It could be sucked in by the cold air return from a leak in the cab or sleeper from outside. The heat exchangers themselves never crack or breach.Or it iscoming through the mounting plate, or where the heater mounts to the mounting plate. is the cold air end of the heater ducted to inside the cab/sleeper?, or does it just draw air from the compartment it is mounted in?

Dear Brian,

I hope you are still available to answer a few questions,

My new old sailboat had been equipped with an Espar D3L version #1640.

When I tried using it, it was smoking and smelling, and after a while it shutdown by itself.

When I looked in the cockpit locker, I noticed the main hot air ducting had been crushed and ripped.

I decided to bring it home and take it apart, there was a lot of carboning which is probably normal after all these years.

After cleaning the parts with some industrial oven cleaner (Mineral spirit was definitely not enough) I am wondering if there is a thin washer missing

As you can see in the following pictures, I end up with a gap of .009" to .018"on the fan.





And also, I noticed the Temperature switch looks a bit rusted, how can I test it ? (Is this what you refer to as the "flame sensor" ?




Thanks !


Frederic
SV Life Aquatic
Bénéteau First 405

Brian silk said:

.Or it iscoming through the mounting plate, or where the heater mounts to the mounting plate. is the cold air end of the heater ducted to inside the cab/sleeper?, or does it just draw air from the compartment it is mounted in?

Click to expand...

its drawing air for inside of a cab, before it used to happen from time to time, now everytime its on it smells like exhaust so I keep it off, my best guess is that gasket has cracked and blower is sucking up fumes via that crack

All the parts you show are correct, and the clearance looks good. There are no specs for it. Make sure the holes in the atomizer are clear. You may have to replace the liner(wire mesh and white material,wick) which lines the combustion chamber. It is removed by prying claws away from it at the seam. Make sure you torch the claws,or they will break.The liner needs replacing if the material impregnating the mesh has fallen out. Make sure all the claws are pressed backtight against the liner or the impellor blades may touch it.

You could fire a heat gun at the flame sensor(yes) untill the terminals go open circuit, but ther is no temp spec. for it. When you fire up the heater the flmae sensor should go open circuit and shut the glow plug off at between 1 min. 15 sec. and 1 min. 35 seconds. If the furnace attains a flame a few second after the fuel starts pumping then it should not take longer than that. If it does take longer with a fast ignition, then the flame sensor may be getting weak. Cooldown should be min. 90 seconds.

I hope that helps.

Problem solved, after dismantling half of the sleeper in order to get espar out I found that air inlet pipe was disconnected from heater and was sucking in exhaust that way, there are holes in sleeper floor that provide ventilation for aux. AC unit,all good now

Thanks Brian for this detailed answer,

I did test the flame sensor, and it does open the circuit at around 145 ° f


Although I am confused about the thin washer I thought I could be missing because of the following photos I saw on
the Yacht Boating World forum :



I will do my best to put a new liner in, and will post photos

I have rebuilt probably two hundred of these and only occasionally run across that thin washer. Most of them looked as though they had never been opened before
All worked fine after the rebuild. It must be put in at the factory either to make the tolerance to spec. ,or as an anti friction washer between the atomizer and impellor? Don't know for sure, sorry. Just know that sometimes they are there and sometimes not.

Dear Brian, me again !

you said something in an earlier post about the flame guide being warped, and I am wondering to which extent you would have to replace the Heat Exchanger.

The outside edge of my flame guide is curled up a bit, and as you can see on the photos, some material is coming off those dots, not sure if they are spot weldings or some king of riveting ?

Obviously, I would rather avoid buying a new exchanger after all the time spent on cleaning this one.

What chemical did you use to clean the exchangers you rebuilt ?

Do you sell Espar parts through Avalon Bay Marine, or is it only servicing ?

Yours looks fine. It is when the inside is warped or cracked. I use carb cleaner on the atomizer and parts. The actual heat exchanger usually do not need cleaning inside past the flame ring.

MORE ESPAR TROUBLES

Hi Brian
I have read through the above pages but have not found a simular problem that I have with my
Espar D4W SC .Maybe you would be kind enough to offer some suggestions
My Espar turns on and runs for approx 30 secs and then starts knocking Tock, tock, tock ect Runs like that for several minutes, blowers turn on, heats the circulating water, but not enough to blow any hot air before turning off. Wait several minutes and restarts and goes through the cycle again, but does not put out any heat through the blowers.
Any thoughts?

Sorry the ferry I was on was docking and I had to get to my car. Yes I am an Espar dealer so I do sell parts but you can also get them from Roton. Next Door to me. Their # is 604-688-2325

Yes you have air in the line. That awful noise is the mag drive impellor flopping around in the pump housing. The flow slows down and the temp sensor kicks in the blowers prematurely
Open the bleed screw on top of the pump housing and let the air out of the pump. Screw it in gently, as it seats on an or ring. Try the heater now. If it overheats 5 times in a row it will lock up and you may need a fault code reader to unlock it.
When you start it put your hand on the surface below the two pump spigots. You should be able to hold your hand there for about 5 min. Before it gets really warm. If it starts to get warm hot very quickly shut the heater down before it shuts down on overheat. If you shut it down it won't stack up another overheat fault. The pump should be quiet. Not rattling. Do you have any manual or auto bleeders at each of the blowers? If you do then open them up and try and bleed air out there as well

Of course make sure the metal reservoir tank as full. Open the rad. Cap before you open the bleeders.

Brian
Thank you very much for the help. I will do as you say.
i am very grateful

Brian silk said:

Hi there. I think the temp of the locker has something to do with it, but not with the safety thermal cut out switch. That would just shut the furnace down. I think because the thermostat is wrong, it is running on the internal temp sensor, which controls the heater output to keep the intake air at around 70 F
You still need to get that new thermostat.

Let me know what happens after that is done.

Click to expand...

Hi Brian; I ordered the thermostat 567 00 97 from Esparparts.com but I received 301 00 154 instead. Called there to ask about the difference and they said that they are both the same part, however the man was not sure it will work on my D3L. He will check and give me a call tomorrow. Before I get into returning and wait for another one to come in, I rather trust your opinion. Will it work or it must be only the 567 00 97 ?
Sorry to bother you with this, but I don’t want to change it more than once.
Thanks
Horacio

You are very welcome. Also, if you hear a kind of pop pop sound coming from the furnace, it could be the coolant boiling in the heat exchanger, but the flow would have to be really bad for that to happen. You can feel that as well on the heater
The vibration from each pop. Let me know how you make out. How big is the boat and what type?

The 301 # is the old #. As long as it has 7 terminals 1-6 and T it Will work with your 25 1738 Ecu

I have a airtronic D2 that was installed 2 yrs ago, it replaced a D3 that lasted 30 yrs. I only replaced the heater leaving the fuel pump from the older unit in place. Unit works fine but on stand by I get a ticking sound, once the unit kicks on the ticking goes away until stand by again. Is the ticking coming from the fuel pump?? should I replace the fuel pump with a new one and then the ticking goes away??
Also, the heat duct is 4" at the heater and 10' later it is shrunk down to 3". The 4' has been flatened and re-shaped but would like to replace the entire duct. I like the trident polyduct HVAC duct 3" hose, is this good???

D3 Combustion assembly Drawing

Just to share, Here's a drawing sent by Eberspacher, of the D3 Combustion assembly :



View attachment Combustion assembly drawing.pdf