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10-12-2019, 09:28 AM
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#1
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Junior Member
Join Date: Nov 2016
Posts: 8
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Suburban oven problems
I have had such a hard time posting this from my iPad so I hope this goes through OK.
We have a 2018 Microlite 25 BHS. I stayed on this forum after we lost our 2017 FR 2504S in an accident because they are identical (and we couldn’t get a FR in time for camping season).
This morning, my oven scared me. Rather than a small blue pilot light flame that moves to a bar that heats the oven (also a blue flame), the pilot light flame was large, had yellow, and expanded beyond the bar (and even behind the pilot light), in blue and yellow.
I’ve attached photos. Does anyone know what this is? We are camping this weekend and using our furnace and hot water heater. I think that it’s just an oven problem because the gas burners work fine.
Does anyone know what this is? Is it safe if I don’t use the oven? Many thanks.
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10-12-2019, 03:34 PM
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#2
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: North of Seattle, WA
Posts: 17,263
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It looks like someone did a DIY fix for an earlier problem with the pilot light going out after oven reached full temp and main flame went down to low.
That flame could be giving off excessive CO but one thing certain, if not it will still leave a lot of carbon on the pieces above ti.
I had the earlier problem and merely ordered the updated part from a Suburban Dealer (Call the Suburban Customer Service Number for location of one near you). Replacing the pilot assembly was inexpensive and easy. Pilot assy was around $12-$13 and shipping brought the cost up to ~$20.
The new pilot assy worked great and flame is just the right size as well as "Blue".
If you want to experiment with the assy you have try this:
Remove pilot assy and enlarge air bleed hole on pilot body using "Number sized" drills. Find one that just fits the existing hole and open it up to the next larger number size drilll. Reinstall and see what flame looks like.
Repeat, going up only one number drill size at a time until you have JUST eliminated the yellow at the top of the flame.
Downside to this method is that it's a lot of work and you may end up with too large a pllot flame to leave on. Could make oven too warm when not in use and waste propane. OK if you don't mind turning on pilot and lighting it just before baking and turning it off when done.
__________________
"A wise man can change his mind. A fool never will." (Japanese Proverb)
"You only grow old when you run out of new things to do"
2018 Flagstaff Micro Lite 25BDS
2023 f-150 SCREW XLT 3.5 Ecoboost (The result of a $68,000 oil change )
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02-09-2020, 12:55 PM
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#3
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 489
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Found this thread in a search. My oven gets up to temperature and then will not relight. Evidently when the flame goes off, the pilot does too. Would this require a new pilot assembly or is there an adjustment? This is caused by a too small pilot flame?
__________________
Jimmy & Teresa Newsom
2018 Riverstone 38RE/2019 Sundowner Toyhauler
2020 RAM 3500 SRW
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02-09-2020, 02:31 PM
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#4
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: North of Seattle, WA
Posts: 17,263
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This is a known problem and the mfr has a replacement pilot light assembly that cures the issue. You'll have to purchase the replacement assy from a dealer as suburban won't send to a user.
Local dealer got one for me and including shipping it was well under $20. Installation took about 15 minutes using a pair of pliers and a Phillip's screwdriver.
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Newsoms
Found this thread in a search. My oven gets up to temperature and then will not relight. Evidently when the flame goes off, the pilot does too. Would this require a new pilot assembly or is there an adjustment? This is caused by a too small pilot flame?
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__________________
"A wise man can change his mind. A fool never will." (Japanese Proverb)
"You only grow old when you run out of new things to do"
2018 Flagstaff Micro Lite 25BDS
2023 f-150 SCREW XLT 3.5 Ecoboost (The result of a $68,000 oil change )
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02-09-2020, 09:35 PM
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#5
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Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2016
Location: Arkansas
Posts: 489
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Thank you.
__________________
Jimmy & Teresa Newsom
2018 Riverstone 38RE/2019 Sundowner Toyhauler
2020 RAM 3500 SRW
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02-09-2020, 10:31 PM
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#6
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: California
Posts: 7,616
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I bought the new improved pilot assembly and it didn't help. I used a fine needle and slightly made the pilot orifice bigger. That made the pilot light bigger and kept it on. I only keep the pilot on when using the oven so a bigger flame didn't concern me.
Might want to try that before spending the money for a new assembly.
Also, I changed the mixture setting so that the flame got more air due to me having it deliver more gas.
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02-10-2020, 11:15 AM
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#7
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: North of Seattle, WA
Posts: 17,263
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Quote:
Originally Posted by babock
I bought the new improved pilot assembly and it didn't help. I used a fine needle and slightly made the pilot orifice bigger. That made the pilot light bigger and kept it on. I only keep the pilot on when using the oven so a bigger flame didn't concern me.
Might want to try that before spending the money for a new assembly.
Also, I changed the mixture setting so that the flame got more air due to me having it deliver more gas.
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The new pilot assy worked perfectly in my oven.
__________________
"A wise man can change his mind. A fool never will." (Japanese Proverb)
"You only grow old when you run out of new things to do"
2018 Flagstaff Micro Lite 25BDS
2023 f-150 SCREW XLT 3.5 Ecoboost (The result of a $68,000 oil change )
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02-10-2020, 01:11 PM
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#8
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: California
Posts: 7,616
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TitanMike
The new pilot assy worked perfectly in my oven.
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Not mine and what I did would be free.
Knowing what I know now, I would have just done the orifice modification from the beginning.
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04-08-2020, 11:26 AM
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#9
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Maintenance Engineer
Join Date: Apr 2020
Location: Verdi, NV and Macon County, TN
Posts: 190
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Quote:
Originally Posted by babock
Not mine and what I did would be free.
Knowing what I know now, I would have just done the orifice modification from the beginning.
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It sounds like your regulator on the oven itself probably needs to be replaced, usually when you lift the top of the stove up there's a small square part the gas line is connected into and out of, that's the gas pressure regulator for the appliance, not the regulator out on your LP tanks, this one is much smaller and at the actual oven. If you don't see it in the top then you'll need to follow the gas line for the oven to find it, but its most likely up under the top.
When that regulator goes bad it will typically allow the pilot to light but as soon as the limited gas starts flowing to the path of least resistance, i.e. your burner, there isn't enough gas at the pilot to work the thermocouple, thermopile, flame sensor (depending on which you have, all look similar and do the same purpose) and the pilot goes out which shuts down the gas valve like its designed to do. Eventually it's going to fail completely, it won't just fix itself or continue working indefinitely like you have it.
Since you like free fixes it sounds like, you can deal with it 1 of 2 ways, replace the tiny regulator, or just remove the tiny regulator entirely. You'll still need fittings or a short piece of brass pipe to fill the spot where the regulator use to be. If you replace the regulator or by pass it before it fails completely, you'll now have to deal with the pilot orifice you enlarged and is probably going to look like the one in the OP's pictures.
As long as the main regulator on your RV has the pressure reduced to 9-13"WC you'll be fine running without the small regulator on the stove/oven. Keep your face away from the top burner the first time you light it if you bypass the small regulator. If the pressure from your tank regulator is higher than 13"WC you could end up with the 3' flame on that top burner.
Myself: That tiny regulator on my oven got bypassed before it ever had a chance to cause problems. I'm weird like that though, I absolutely hate extra unnecessary added in points of failure, redundant regulators like that are unnecessary. I do however have a very high quality first and second stage regulator system feeding all my gas appliances from the tanks.
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04-08-2020, 02:19 PM
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#10
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: California
Posts: 7,616
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ampdraw
It sounds like your regulator on the oven itself probably needs to be replaced
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Nope.
Burner for the oven has a very large flame and all the stove top burners all have large flames.
Not the regulator.
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04-08-2020, 02:36 PM
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#11
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Maintenance Engineer
Join Date: Apr 2020
Location: Verdi, NV and Macon County, TN
Posts: 190
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Quote:
Originally Posted by babock
Nope.
Burner for the oven has a very large flame and all the stove top burners all have large flames.
Not the regulator.
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If you say so, 30 years of dealing with this exact problem several million times tells me otherwise. When the regulator starts to go the first place the problem presents itself is in the pilot. I've been on more service calls than I could even begin to count where the owner has replaced the pilot 3 times complaining that we kept selling them bad pilots. Go figure, replace the regulator and it works, just like we told them when they came to pick up the second pilot but they knew better than the people who deal with these problems day in and day out.
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04-08-2020, 03:07 PM
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#12
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Pickin', Campin', Mason
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: South Western PA
Posts: 19,051
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ampdraw
If you say so, 30 years of dealing with this exact problem several million times tells me otherwise. When the regulator starts to go the first place the problem presents itself is in the pilot. I've been on more service calls than I could even begin to count where the owner has replaced the pilot 3 times complaining that we kept selling them bad pilots. Go figure, replace the regulator and it works, just like we told them when they came to pick up the second pilot but they knew better than the people who deal with these problems day in and day out.
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LOL... just when I was starting to give you a newbie chance...
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04-08-2020, 03:21 PM
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#13
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: California
Posts: 7,616
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ampdraw
If you say so, 30 years of dealing with this exact problem several million times tells me otherwise. When the regulator starts to go the first place the problem presents itself is in the pilot. I've been on more service calls than I could even begin to count where the owner has replaced the pilot 3 times complaining that we kept selling them bad pilots. Go figure, replace the regulator and it works, just like we told them when they came to pick up the second pilot but they knew better than the people who deal with these problems day in and day out.
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LOL....BTW...I did make the big mistake of thinking it was the regulator because someone, like you, suggested it so I replaced it. Was not the issue.
So yes....I say so!
I sold the original one I took out on eBay and lost around $20 with that experiment.
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04-08-2020, 03:31 PM
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#14
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Maintenance Engineer
Join Date: Apr 2020
Location: Verdi, NV and Macon County, TN
Posts: 190
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Quote:
Originally Posted by babock
LOL....BTW...I did make the big mistake of thinking it was the regulator because someone, like you, suggested it so I replaced it. Was not the issue.
So yes....I say so!
I sold the original one I took out on eBay and lost around $20 with that experiment.
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So I guess what led to your problem that you had to fix was that orifice hole on your pilot shrunk over time and eventually had to be opened up more to bring it back to its original working size, makes perfect sense. The new pilot you already tried must have had a preshrunk hole.
There see, you taught me something, I would have never guessed that over time the hole in a metal pilot orifice would shrink ever smaller till it got to the point it would no longer work and need to be reopened back to original size to work again.
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04-08-2020, 03:43 PM
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#15
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: California
Posts: 7,616
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ampdraw
So I guess what led to your problem that you had to fix was that orifice hole on your pilot shrunk over time and eventually had to be opened up more to bring it back to its original working size, makes perfect sense. The new pilot you already tried must have had a preshrunk hole.
There see, you taught me something, I would have never guessed that over time the hole in a metal pilot orifice would shrink ever smaller till it got to the point it would no longer work and need to be reopened back to original size to work again.
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Actually, was a brand new oven. I spoke to Suburban and they gave me the part number for an updated pilot assembly since this was an ongoing problem with this oven. I bought this assembly and it worked the same as the original one. That is when the new regulator was suggested to me. Enlarging the pilot hole ended up being my final fix. Since I never just leave the pilot on when I am not using the oven, works fine with a little larger flame. I of course adjusted the mixture for the pilot light since I was feeding more gas.
I always suspected that the updated pilot assembly that was sold to me had the old version in the bag. That's why I just recommend to people having this problem to slightly enlarging the pilot hole first with a needle to see if that fixes their problem first. Free!!
For future reference, the regulator is located under the top cover attached to the manifold assembly. The regulator then supplies the regulated gas to the burners as well as the control valve for the oven control. I was actually told the oven control portion was at fault, not the regulator itself.
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04-08-2020, 05:28 PM
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#16
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Maintenance Engineer
Join Date: Apr 2020
Location: Verdi, NV and Macon County, TN
Posts: 190
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I know all about drilling out orifices, there's actually more to it than just making a hole bigger. We calculate in a lot of factors to just take a hole the next size up, which is a difference in size not much more than a human hair, we calculate the type of gas, gas pressure, BTU's, air mix and atmospheric pressure of the location, be it sea level or 10,000 feet, every 1,000 feet of altitude can make a significant difference when all the other factors remain the same.
While I would suggest a person use a needle to clean out the orifice hole if its plugged with debris, I wouldn't suggest they make the hole larger just to (what will inevitably be temporary) fix a problem, but rather solve the problem. Making the hole larger is going to end up causing even further problems when that pilot flame soots up everything in the oven faster or shorter depending on how bad larger a person makes the hole.
When you physically see the pilot flame drop as the burner fires there's a less than 3% chance the problem is in the pilot safety valve, I say that because that's not usually what happens when a pilot safety valve fails, even when its failing intermittently. There's a 97% actual cause of the problem being the regulator that causes this issue.
As a professional who deals with these problems and solves them, not just fixes them, we wouldn't need to buy this $280 specialty drill bit kit for properly sizing orifices if the solution was as simple as just using a needle to make the hole bigger, and "a little bigger" was an actual measurable term. A little bigger to me is a couple microns, to someone else a little bigger is the smallest drill bit they own which is probably a 1/8" which would cause an LP pilot to shoot out a 6 foot tall flame.
Let's be clear about one thing here. I am not knocking you at all for your fix, I'm guilty of doing the same thing myself back in the day when I was learning what I know now.
Just going up or down one size in this kit if not calculated properly can make something work beautifully or destroy it completely. You might not be able to tell in the picture, but 1 size difference is about the width of a human hair.
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04-08-2020, 08:15 PM
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#17
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: California
Posts: 7,616
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Good grief!!!
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04-09-2020, 09:42 PM
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#18
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Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2017
Location: North of Seattle, WA
Posts: 17,263
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ampdraw
If you say so, 30 years of dealing with this exact problem several million times tells me otherwise. When the regulator starts to go the first place the problem presents itself is in the pilot. I've been on more service calls than I could even begin to count where the owner has replaced the pilot 3 times complaining that we kept selling them bad pilots. Go figure, replace the regulator and it works, just like we told them when they came to pick up the second pilot but they knew better than the people who deal with these problems day in and day out.
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I guess I was one of the lucky ones. I replaced the pilot with the new, superseding p/n. Also adjusted mount bracket as advised by dealer's service manager so pilot flame was in proper position.
Worked great through numerous bakin sessions.
Like I said, probably luck.
__________________
"A wise man can change his mind. A fool never will." (Japanese Proverb)
"You only grow old when you run out of new things to do"
2018 Flagstaff Micro Lite 25BDS
2023 f-150 SCREW XLT 3.5 Ecoboost (The result of a $68,000 oil change )
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