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Morco D61b pilot won’t stay alight


Ratty's Retreat

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Hello.

The pilot flame on my water heater intermittently goes out. I have replaced the pilot assembly and the thermocouple with spillage? thermal switch. It went out again this weekend, it would relight but not stay lit when gas valve released. Left it a few hours and it relit until we left boat a few hours later.

Could the gas valve be faulty?

Thanks in advance.

John.

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7 minutes ago, Ratty's Retreat said:

Hello.

The pilot flame on my water heater intermittently goes out. I have replaced the pilot assembly and the thermocouple with spillage? thermal switch. It went out again this weekend, it would relight but not stay lit when gas valve released. Left it a few hours and it relit until we left boat a few hours later.

Could the gas valve be faulty?

Thanks in advance.

John.

Unless you are a registered gas safe engineer, if I tell you what is wrong I will have to kill you.

 

Suffice it to say the voltage generated by the thermocouple is tiny and if the contact with the solenoid in the gas valve is not perfect or the pilot flame not impinging on the thermocouple tip correctly, it will do what you describe.

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12 hours ago, Ratty's Retreat said:

Could the gas valve be faulty?

 

Yes it could, seeing as no-one has answered your question.

 

Quite unlikely though. More probably the pilot flame is too small and not properly enveloping the thermocouple tip in my opinion. 

 

 

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Thanks for your replies, good to know it’s unlikely to be the gas valve. 

The pilot assembly is all new, however the cap that fits over the jet and diverts the flame onto the thermocouple is not properly welded and some of the pilot flame is burning at the sides of the cap and not heating the thermocouple. 

Now I know where to concerntrate my efforts when I’m back at the boat.

Thanks.

John. 

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22 minutes ago, Ratty's Retreat said:

some of the pilot flame is burning at the sides of the cap and not heating the thermocouple. 

You’ve just analysed your problem :)

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21 minutes ago, WotEver said:

You’ve just analysed your problem :)

 

Not necessarily.

 

Pilot flames are often bifurcated with one branch of the bifurcated flame enveloping the thermocouple tip and the other pointing at the main burner to ignite the flame there.

 

I can't remember if the Morco pilot is though. I'm not on a boat tonight.

 

 

Edited by Mike the Boilerman
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6 hours ago, WotEver said:

You’ve just analysed your problem :)

Hopefully but I had the same problem before, which led me to replace the complete pilot and thermocouple assemblies. There were no stray flames with the old cap. The stray flames are small but may divert enough gas from pilot to de-energise the thermocouple?

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11 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Not necessarily.

 

Pilot flames are often bifurcated with one branch of the bifurcated flame enveloping the thermocouple tip and the other pointing at the main burner to ignite the flame there.

 

I can't remember if the Morco pilot is though. I'm not on a boat tonight.

 

 

I didn’t know that.

Every day’s a school day :)

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8 minutes ago, WotEver said:

I didn’t know that.

Every day’s a school day :)

 

Here's a photo showing one. (Photo taken to illustrate flame erosion of the earth electrode and slipped ignition electrode core which together interfere with flame rectification, but shows the flame-bifurcating pilot shroud quite well.)

 

This is not on a Morco though. Just an example of a split-flame pilot. 

 

image.png.094d7de7df94ce5a9428e95c9f4cab7d.png

 

And here it is, removed from the boiler, corrected and ready to put back!

 

image.png.da06447a59e6a7af2e83a7c2a19837ef.png

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