Fridge Auto Igniter

[CanStan]

I know- another Westy fridge that's hard to start.
I have a '90 Westy with the auto igniter. Not the push button style igniter most Vanagons have. There is not a lot of info out there about these types of fridges, and I haven't been able to sort it out despite spending hours trying to fix it. The igniter will very rarely click when I press the button for it, but when I disconnect the wire from the igniter module to the fire box, it begins clicking instantly. This would tell me the igniter wire is grounding out somewhere. I replaced it with a new wire, and checked that wire for continuity, but the same problem exists. When I disconnect the wire from the module, the spark will jump between the 2 if they are close enough. This tells me the module is working properly.
Does anyone have any suggestions on where else to look? I'm all out of ideas. Thanks!

[Tobias Duncan]

Is that the original igniter?
They tend to go out by degrees. There is a pretty serious design flaw in that of the pilot goes out, that sucker will click its life away and you can barely even hear it.

I would pull the igniter and see if the bottom is showing signs of heat.

[CanStan]

The igniter wire is new. The module is original but appears to be ok as far as I can tell by looking at it. It's hard to know for sure because the electronics are sealed in that resin or whatever sealer that is. The strange thing is that every single time I disconnect the wire to the firebox from the igniter module, it immediately begins clicking and stops immediately when it's reconnected.
I find the clicking is pretty easy to hear without trying too hard. Infact, one of the few times I had it running properly on propane, the propane tank ran out and I could immediately hear the igniter trying to restart while I was 30 feet away from the van.

[jetpoweredmonkey]

The igniter wires have too little insulation for the amount of current they are asked to carry. I too had problems with the wire grounding out and the spark jumping to the chassis of the fridge enroute to the fire box.

Check that the fire box has a good ground path for the igniter. It helped mine to get in there and clean with a brass or stainless brush so that the igniter had a nice clean target for the spark to make the jump. A friend of mine had the same problem (we both have the auto igniter fridge like yours in our '91s) and ended up cutting out the igniter wire and replacing with a length of spark plug wire. That worked for him, but it's troublesome to get a good connection at the ends of the wire, how do you insulate it where you make the connections?

My Dometic is reliable now but to tell the truth, I'm not sure why I even bother with it. The cooling sucks and the space is not well utilized. I'm just a sucker for originality, I guess.
_________________
1991 Westfalia 2WD

[jetpoweredmonkey]

For the truly committed, Bus Depot does still carry the igniter wire.

http://www.busdepot.com/255070507a
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1991 Westfalia 2WD

[Tobias Duncan]

That resin will start to discolor when the module is dying. Eventually it will burn through and arc straight to the metal underneath where its mounted.

Are you dead sure you dont have any wires swapped?

[CanStan]

Thanks for the ideas guys!

jetpoweredmonkey- are you suggesting to clean the firebox itself to improve the ground? I wondered about that area needing a better ground, so I temporarily ran a ground wire from the firebox to a ground with no improvement. Maybe running a ground wire from one of the 6 (or is it 8?) screws that hold the 2 halves of the box together? I ran the new wire a different path than the original hoping to avoid grounding to the fridge body if that was the issue. No luck.

Tobias Duncan- the resin on the underside of my module has a brown tint to it. I've honestly never looked at another one so I don't know if that's normal? I guess the easy solution would be to swap the igniter module with another, but I don't know anyone else with this style of fridge. I will happily buy a new one, but that's a $150 experiment and I'd like to be certain before I invest that kind of money in a fix. The thing that makes me think it's not the module is that as soon as I remove the wire to the firebox, it begins clicking every time. Maybe I'm wrong about this theory, but it seems if the module was on it's way out this wouldn't change things?

[jetpoweredmonkey]

I think your ignition module is working fine if it will throw a spark as you mention.

The part of the firebox that I cleaned up to bright metal was whatever part that faces the igniter probe, i.e., where the spark is going to jump to. I don't know if that actually helped or not, but it's worth a try while you have the fridge out.
_________________
1991 Westfalia 2WD

[Tobias Duncan]

Your module sounds like its fine.
I found new ones for 25 bucks when I did mine, just takes some shopping around.
How about the connection between the wire and the igniter?
Maybe test for continuity with an ohm meter?

[kalispell365]

[Tobias Duncan]

[Tobias Duncan]

Yes definitely the one.
Here it for 25 bucks.




http://www.adventurerv.net/dometic-refrigerator-re...ce=Froogle

[CanStan]

Thanks guys. I'll clean up the fire box tomorrow and let you know how it goes. Thanks Tobias for posting the link for the igniter. At first I thought my igniter was the issue and after lots of searching the best price I found was about $75. I'm sure lots of people will benefit from that link!

[davevickery]

I have been testing my electronic version and found something that might be helpful.

Mine hadn't been run in years. It worked great testing it for a few days. Today it would not spark. I check 12V at various places all the way to the output of the igniter circuit board where I was seeing a 12V pulse. So it had to be in the wire to the burner box. I removed the sparker/piezo and touched it to ground and got a nice spark. As soon as I did that, it started working normally. Even without touching to ground now, you can hear it sparking somewhere internally, probably inside the igniter board. I didn't want let it do that for long, so I just put it back to together and am calling it fixed for now. So I think you can also rule out any problems before the piezo wire. You might try doing what I did and see if you get the same result.

Not sure why grounding it jolted it back to life, or how long it will last. I am assuming the piezo or wiring is just old but I'll see how long it goes before it gives me trouble again. I hit it with a fine sand paper before putting it back together just for the heck of it.

[davevickery]

Well that fix was short lived.

Now I just got the same symptoms as you. No sparking. I pulled the piezo again and tried grounding it again but this time no luck. Then I pulled the piezo wire off the igniter board and it immediately began sparking. After that it was working again.

In my case, better grounding at the burner box wouldn't matter, because I can hear the igniter sparking at the igniter box if the piezo is removed and just hanging in the air. Initially I was thinking piezo wire, but since you replaced yours, now I am thinking there is either a loose wiring connection at the igniter or the igniter board is not putting out sufficient current. Does anyone know for sure if the igniter boards fail slowly like this or just quit altogether).

If this happens again before I install it, I'll try cleaning up the wiring connection and a new igniter board. If that doesn't work, I'm done and will get a truckfridge.

[Tobias Duncan]

I wonder if both your modules are dying. I remember mine worked intermittently before finally giving up.
I suspect that your module finds it easier to ground to the fridge right below its mounting surface than the all the way down the wire to the burn box.

[davevickery]

Mine seems to be working again. I pulled the wires on the igniter and pinched them a bit and put them back. I pulled the ground wire and made sure it was nice and tight and clean. Not sure if that fixed it since this seems a little intermittent.

However I realized one dumb thing I was doing at least some of the time while testing it. The fridge doesn't need the piezo to run. So if it was running and you never turned the gas off you can't test the igniter because it will not spark (since it is still lit) but it will immediately start to spark when you pull the wire. Ofcourse if it never started, this does not apply.

My little upgraded SilenX fan is working well. It draws .1 amp when running on low. When I move the thermister wire to a hotter spot it revs up a bit and draws .125 amps and moves 70 CFM of air according to the specs. And it really is virtually silent. It was about $14 shipped.
http://www.directron.com/efx1215t.html

BTW, the resin on the bottom of my Igniter board is looking kind of brown too and the 12V +/1 wires coming into it show some heat darkening right near the ends.

[kalispell365]

[Tobias Duncan]

A little browning in the resin is not a big deal. Look for black marks on the green circuit board next time you have it out.
I will try to find a picture of my old one.

[davevickery]

Boy, I am going through a whole gamut of issues. My fridge came out of a wrecked van that sat for 3 years. So I think I am just working out the kinks. I'm just posting this in case it is helpful to you or someone else.

Just tried firing it up again and no spark. Wiggling the push button got it sparking. It stopped again, and I just wiggled the wiring on top of the switch and that got it going. I can replace that switch with a couple simple toggle switches if need be. But wiggling them even from the outside seems to get it going.

Another issue unrelated to the igniter. After I got it sparking, it wouldn't light. I could hear it getting propane with the button depressed so I got my leaf blower, ala Caddy Shack, and blasted the intake first then through the little piezo hole in the burner box (too lazy to take it all apart), then blasted air through the exhaust port. Now it rumbles louder that it did before when I put my ear to the exhaust. I assume it is cleaned out enough.

This is the trouble with these fridges. You think it is just one more thing, so you keep putting more and more time into them. I'm glad I haven 't already installed it in the van. I remember one fridge, I probably took it out a dozen times before it was working reliably.