Webasto Cutting out

[Benboats]

Hey there,

 

New to the forum but had a question about my Webasto Thermo Top C (refurbished)  I installed it about 2 weeks ago onto my widebeam and it has been working perfectly. The last time I turned it on I noticed a few seconds of white smoke during running though it seemed fine. However I tried to turn it on today and it fails during start up.

 

The heater turns on and the pump starts clicking away, the usual amount of light smoke comes out the exhaust and it slowly powers up as normal going through the c start up, at some point it goes quiet and starts again and a a fair bit of white smoke comes out, the pump stops ticking and after a few seconds the burner shuts off.

 

My batteries are fine as have solar so voltage is fine, I have half a tank of fuel, (though not sure how far the fuel intake pipe extends down into the tank, and had the diesel polished this summer. the header tank is fine so i'm assuming no air pockets, from reading I wonder if its the glow plug? it has hardly been used (by me) but maybe the glow plug was not changed? 

 

Any knolwageable thoughts out there greatly appreciated as its starting to get cold these days!

[Tony Brooks]

No direct knowledge but assertions that the battery is fine without readings to back it up are pretty much useless.My initial suspicion would be lack of voltage for some reason so what is the battery voltage measured at the battery terminals while the start sequence is operating, what is the voltage at the glow plug when operating and what is the voltage at the heater input connector?

[Boater Sam]

Practically all problems with Webastards are due in some way to low voltages. On start up the heater plug has to get up to full temperature within a set time and the unit has to see a clean burning flame or it will shut down.

The white smoke is unburnt fuel, so it has a supply.

Don't try too many failed starts before getting it checked on a computer as you can wipe the fault memory which makes diagnosis difficult.

I usually connect the unit direct to a fully charged battery close by, if it then works you know its an electrical supply problem. And if its a truck set unit it will need to always have a higher voltage than a marine set unit. It is alterable with the special lead and a computer.