Exactly one year ago I bought my new Micro Lite but before I got to use it had a heart attack and ended up having bypass surgery. Kind of set me back in finding all the flaws and defects that needed attention.
This May I finally made it to the road and took a trip to the Oregon Coast with my son. This is when we uncovered a major irritation. First the stove burners wouldn't provide a full flame. One burner wouldn't even light unless I hit it with a match and even then it only filled about 3/4 of the flame circle.
Next was the oven. Would light but only showed flame on about 1/2 to 3/4 of the burner unit and frequently went out on it's own.
Last was the outside BBQ. Wouldn't light at all (there went the steaks we had planned for dinner) no matter what. Close investigation showed NO Propane at the quick disconnect.
When we got back I hit the road again for a month and just put this issue on the back burner. The Furnace worked as did the Refrigerator on Propane.
Finally I got under the trailer and started looking at the propane lines. What a joke. For some reason the entire system from regulator to appliance is all in "rubber" hose. At the mid-point of the trailer there is a group of "Ghetto Engineered" connections (Furnace, Water Heater, Refrigerator, Stove/Oven, Outside BBQ}, and a line continuing on to the outside kitchen burners.
It was clear that the reason the outside BBQ didn't work is that the connections were aligned so the slightest pull on the hose when hooking up the BBQ caused it to kink and totally shut off the flow. Ditto for other lines but not to the same extent.
As I was looking over the rest of the gas system I looked at the cheesy regulator that the factory installed. Some unrecognizable brand with a changeover knob that was difficult to tell which tank it was indicating.
This last week I decided to just upgrade and at least get the same gas system as I had on my old 1995 Terry. I installed a Marshall Two Stage Regulator with the old "Top hat" type pressure indicator. New regulator can deliver up to 350,000 BTU from the tank that the lever is switched to and after auto changeover, 250,000 BTU until the lever is changed. Also replaced the pigtails. The OE ones were already turning hard and felt like they were made of plastic. My experience has been the next thing that happens is cracking and leaking.
BTW, when I removed the inverted flare/npt fitting from the old regulator I found a glob of pipe dope inside. Wonder how much of it ended up down the line?
I'm considering a change in the main distribution line. rather than the hose that runs full length of the trailer outside the belly cover I'm considering some black iron pipe (3/8"? ) and where each line branches of to it's own appliance build a manifold that would allow the lines to feed straight with no right angle bends as I found. This is what the old Terry I owned had for gas distribution and it was fed by a flex line between it and regulator. Has anyone done this to their trailer, got rid of the long hose feeds in favor of black iron pipe. What about Copper type L?
In closing, with the new regulator and unkinked hose, the BBQ works great. I started it on the first poke of the igniter. When I closed the lid the internal temp was up to 500 degrees in a matter of a couple minutes. Cooking dinner on it tonight
Oh yeah, the burners now show full flame and light immediately.
Linear Mode
