Heater repair in PNW?

[Nostril Cheese]

I scored one of those white gas shop heaters last winter to keep the garage warm. For $50 I figured it was worth it.

It worked like a champ all last winter, thermostatically controlled, but it's acting a little screwy when I fired it up today. Fuel lines and filter are clear, sparker works fine. I don;t have a lot of time to mess with the thing. Anybody know of a good place to take this thing in Portland?

[Nostril Cheese]

Anybody? Bueller?

[Don Ro]

Portland, OR
Thursday 6:00 PM
Light rain. 32' F
.
No help but I bet you need it.

[carambola]

personally, those things always gave me a headache, keep it outside and make a heat sink.
call it practice with welding.

[GWN7]

"Worked like a champ all last winter"

Drain the old fuel out of it. Refill with new fuel and try again.

[Nostril Cheese]

Originally Posted by GWN7

"Worked like a champ all last winter"

Drain the old fuel out of it. Refill with new fuel and try again.

I drained the fuel at the end of last winter and checked the lines/filter before adding new fuel today.

[porsche4life]

Is it sucking fuel like it's supposed to? They don't have a pump, just the air pressure from the fan causes a low psi suction. There should be a cap on the fuel line you can pill off and with the fan running feel if it has suction. If not the orifice on the end of the line is plugged.

Also, are you sure its a "white gas" heater. Most of that style run on kerosene, or diesel. We run ours on about 5gal diesel/1 gal gas mix to burn hotter and make less fumes.

http://www.protemp.us/Kerosene_Diesel_Forced_Air_Heater.php

[GWN7]

Then do as Sidney suggests, check fuel supply line and orifice.

[Nostril Cheese]

Sorry, I thought white gas and kerosene were the same thing. Its got fresh kerosene in it. Checked the cap, there's suction.

It will work great for about 5 minutes and then shut off, it just gives a generic error code for malfunction. I unplug it, then restart it, then 5 minutes, shut down. The code is one of those "check everything" deals.

[porsche4life]

Sounds like a control board issue. Ours are old enough to not have control boards.

[Bugsinrugs]

Fuel pressure regulator? On the propane heaters like that the regulators can go funky.

[Nostril Cheese]

The regulator seems to be working fine. I did have to play with it a bit when I first got the heater.

[porsche4life]

My money is on that control board that is flashing an error code.

[Nostril Cheese]

I figured out the problem. There's a resistor mounted near the burner housing. It acts as a thermal shutoff for the AC voltage. I went down to Radio Shack and got another one. Problem solved.

Thanks for the tips, guys.