Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 20:53:12 -0700
Reply-To: bpchristensen1@HOME.COM
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Brent Christensen <bpchristensen1@HOME.COM>
Subject: Lighting the Dometic 182B Refrigerator (LONG!!)
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> to operate all the stuff yet. As a matter of fact, the previous owner of
15
> years never used any of the camper parts. I had to take the origonal blue
> plastic off the stove before I operated it.
Lucky you! That saved a lot of wear and tear on the cabin, I'm sure. :-)
> on yet via the propane. If you dont mind me asking, does this work
> well..propane that is?
Propane works quite well for maintaining things in a cool state. Don't
expect to be able to shove a warm 6-pack in there at 4:00 and have cold beer
at 5:00, though. Here's my rules of thumb for efficient fridge operation:
1. Pre-chill the fridge the night before leaving using 110v.
2. Make sure all the goodies you're going to put in there are cold to begin
with.
3. Don't overfill the fridge - since there is no interior fan (in stock
configuration) circulation of cold air off the evaporator is essentially
blocked if the fridge is stuffed to the gills.
4. I pretty much just use the fridge for stuff I don't want sitting in a
pool of ice water at the bottom of a cooler. Examples are meats and
cheeses, a quart of milk, and eggs. When camping, I carry drinks and bulky,
waterproof stuff in a big rolling ice chest. (also holds the ice for cold
drinks)
Pre-cooling the fridge on 110v or 12v also makes it easier to light on
propane. These buggers are notoriously hard to light, and if yours hasn't
been lit in 15 years, its a good bet it won't be easy the first time you
try. Running it on 12v or 110v preheats the column of air in the flue and
creates a convective air current that draws fresh oxygenated air into the
combustion chamber. (This will make more sense after you have tried
lighting it). I can get my fridge to light on the first try every time.
Here's what I do:
1. Preheat/chill the fridge on electricity for at least 4 hours.
2. Open the outside gas valve (don't forget this step!)
3. Light the stove and run both burners for about 45 seconds. This draws
gas into the lines,
4. Turn on the LED panel. Does yours have 4 LED lights on the left side
where the water level indicator is? If so, the bottom one is green and
tells you when your pilot light is lit. If you don't have this LED, bummer;
you'll need to go get a heavy, dark blanket to drape over your head like an
old-fashioned photographer while you peer into the lower left corner of the
fridge at the puny little sight glass.
5. Now set the gas knob to "I", the rocker switch to the "flame" position,
and crank the temp knob all the way anti-clockwise (full on)
6. Grab the starting pump with the left hand and give it about 5 or 6 quick
strokes to put some air in the chamber. Now hold down the pilot button on
the right with your other hand while you work the pump. This time, push the
pump all the way in on the inward stroke so that you hear a "click" each
time. The idea is that you have gas flowing at the pilot light, and you
want to simultaneously push fresh air into the chamber and create a spark to
ignite the mixture. If you pump too fast, the mixture won't always light.
Pump too slow, and the chamber gets "flooded".
7. Now the tricky part - watch that LED (or the sight glass) for the
faintest glimmer of light. If it lights up, stop pumping with your left
hand, but HOLD THE GAS ON with your right hand. Give it about 1 minute to
completely warm the thermocouple and then let go of the pilot button. If
all goes well, the light will stay on, and it is only a matter of time
before the fridge is humming along, and won;t go out, even at highway
speeds. (isn't that ironic?)
Now if it doesn't light within about a dozen or two pump/clicks, let go of
everything and wait about 2-3 minutes. Then repeat, starting at #6 above,
pushing some fresh air into the chamber before hitting the pilot gas.
If you follow this, the fridge works on electricity, and it still won't
light (and the stove works), you likely have one of the following problems
(not in any particular order):
1. Bad regulator - some people have great luck by simply switching to a
Marshall 290 regulator (check with the List on this one, I'm not absolutely
sure of the model number)
2. Pressure is set incorrectly on the regulator. Mark Drillock did some
extensive testing last summer and has some good data on this. Check the
archives for his posts from last year about this time.
3. Faulty air pump not pushing fresh air into the combustions chamber -
repair/replace.
4. Clogged jet/orifice - soak overnight in alcohol and blow out with
compressed air.
5. Foreign material in the combustion chamber. - After 15 years, I wouldn't
be surprised to find a family of critters living in there. One tiny
caterpillar caused my fridge to go from 30 degrees to not cooling down past
55 degrees last summer.
6. Blocked or improperly aligned flue
I'm sure there are lots of other things to check, but those are what comes
immediately to my mind. :-)
>I really want to wire in a spare battery soon. On
> a trip a few months ago, I stopped with the fridge on battery power. When
I
> returned it had drained the battery so I was unable to start the van.
This is one of the reasons I rarely run the fridge on battery power, even
though I have auxiliary batteries. That sucker draws something like 7 amps.
Run it on propane instead - it will go for about two weeks between fillups.
>
> Is there benefits to installing another fan for the fridge like yours?
That is a subject of some debate, and there has been a lot of different
methods described by various list members. For me the biggest reason to add
a fan was to replace the exisiting NOISY one. On hot summer nights, my wife
and I would lay there listening to that *($& thing running constantly! So I
replaced it with a Fridgemate unit that looks exactly like the stock unit.
I fabricated a mount for it, and wired it to a nifty three pole switch that
is mounted to the front panel of the fridge (from Radio Shack). Being the
cheap *(#&$ that I am, I didn't want to throw away the other fan that was
still running, so I hooked it up to the same switch (and thermistor) so that
when the thermistor kicks in I can have either the new fan, both fans, or no
fans (for storage/non-camping). I kick on both fans during the day when it
is hot and I don't care about the noise.
Hope this all helps. Most of these ideas were given to me by list members,
so I am happy to "give back" to the community. :-)
Brent Christensen
'89 GL Syncro Westy
Santa Barbara, CA
