This will strain the breadth of experience of the membership here, but there is little other place to try to ask.
Background: Two years ago I bought (from a big Midwestern DIY chain called Menards) a Dyna Glo 50,000 BTU kerosene heater to warm my old John Deere snowthrower so it will start). Right after I got it, of course, there was little snow and cold weather, End result, I didn't use the heater for more than 20 minutes while under warrantee. And once you put kerosene in it, they don't want it back in the store. So now I have a heater that doesn't work as described below, and my attempts to fix it. I do believe it is fixable, based on one of the truly bizarre things I'll describe.
Here goes with the description. Tank 1/2 full of fresh fuel. This model has no pressure readout but one would assume it was adjusted at the factory. Turn it on, the igniter starts to click, the fuel pressurization starts, fan comes on and it fires. In about 30 to 45 seconds but sometimes two minutes or so, it just shuts down, even though flaming. I took the upper protective hood off which covers the fan, the burner and hot parts. The filter seems to be good. The photoelectric eye is clean and aligned with the manual's recommendation. All wires solid on the electronics circuit board, and the igniter seems to not only spark while getting ready to start, but looks clean (after all the thing hasn't run a total of an hour yet.) I've had one of these as an older model crack the fuel hose and I fixed that by replacing it with a neoprene or silicon fuel-approved hose, but all hoses are looking good and no kinks or cracks.
Now starts the odd part: Before going to put all the screws back that hold the top half of the protective shell over the fan and burner chamber, so I figure what the heck, I'll fire it up. On it comes and ten minutes later still running strong. OK, don't know what I did, but maybe dusting the lens of the electric eye (shows my age, doesn't it?) or reseating the wires and plugs did something but thank goodness it is fixed. After it cools, I reattach the hood, fire it up and the darn thing quits in 20 seconds or less. Shucks. Pull the top off again, fire it up bare and voila, runs as long as I want to burn kerosene. OK, I'm going to trick this little beast and while running I sneak up on it and slowly lower the top in place to avoid hitting hot parts and using the fan as a saw. Zippo, it dies within 10 seconds of lowering the top on. OK, even though there isn't a pressure gauge (and yet the manual gives very precise expected pressure for it to run, I'm at a loss to figure out how in the world the average person is supposed to set that range) I figure it is not getting enough fuel when the airflow is higher when the fan's total output is blowing through the combustion chamber, and without the hood on some air is exiting the wind tunnel before it gets into the burner. Seems reasonable. But no amount of adjusting of the pressure regulator screw will make any difference in longevity of the burn with the top is set back in place.
So far I've not been able to get a hold of anyone in their customer service area to see if I can get any guidance at all. I love a good mystery, but so far I cannot explain this crazy thing's behavior.
Anyone with a mechanical bent to their mind have any ideas? Of course the one thing I would like to do is set the fuel pump regulator pressure (my original unit had a gauge on it for this purpose but the $2.00 part must have been too expensive to use on more recent models, I guess.
I'm all ears. Dale
