zero Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Yeah . . I know. Many here will argue they drive all over the country with their refrigerator on gas-mode and do fine. I don't and never will. It's a ticking time bomb in my opinion. I've seen many an RV burn up but rarely hear what the cause was. I suspect often, cause is unknown. Well - here's a case where if I had mine on - it's almost 100% sure I would of had a fire, or worse - an explosion. I was driving on some very bumpy and washboarded roads in the Michigan UP. It was really shaking things up and I was telling my wife this would be the LAST time we drive on this 25 miles of horrible road. But it is the only way into a state campground we like (Blind Sucker State Campground, Eastern UP). So, my refrigerator was on 12 volt mode as it always is when I drive and had been working fine. When we got to the camp - I turned the gas on, and I switched the refrigerator over to "gas" mode and tried to light it with the push-button Piezo lighter. The lighter would not work. No "snap" when I pushed in the button. It has been working fine the night before. So I went outside and then smelled gas. Found out the burner had come loose and was wobbling all over the place. Gas line had come loose. The Piezo lighter did not light because when I pushed on the button - the whole damn burner moved instead of the quartz-lighter snapping. Long story a little shorter. I did not realize how flimsy the the lock-tab is that holds the burner assembly to the chimney. It doesn't take much to make it rotate 90 degrees, fall off, and let the burner come loose. NOT something well designed for any sort of rough road driving. I am VERY glad I was not driving with the refrigerator in gas mode, and #2 also glad I was not driving with even the gas tank turned "on." I stopped doing that after my regulator went bad last year and I lost all my propane while driving. Going highway speed, we never smelled the propane leak until I stopped to get gasoline at a gas station. Then we noticed it REAL fast. Considering all the gas lines running all over the RV that can suffer from road-jouncing and vibration, and also the possibility of the regulator springing a leak - no more driving with the valve on for me anymore. Hey - not telling anyone what to do, or what not to do. That being said, it is clear that as least this model Dometic is not up to the job of handling rough travel. I doubt any of the other models are much better though. Here's some photos of what I did to fix it, and beef it up a bit. Only thing I'm not 100% sure of yet is the aluminum brace I added at the bottom. One part is attached to the metal burner enclosure, and the bottom is attached to wood. I have to make sure it doesn't get too hot and become a hazard. I'm going to run it a full day and see how hot that brace gets on the bottom. If too hot - I'll drill a bunch of holes in it for cooling and re-test. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCRIPAL Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Nice job on the fix and am glad a disaster was avoided. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jjrbus Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 Glad it was not a disaster! Now I have to go look at mine. Thanks for posting. Jim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCRIPAL Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 JD, is it possible to buy a new lock ring? The one you show appears to have had its day? Did you remove all that rust or how did you clean it up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 JD, is it possible to buy a new lock ring? The one you show appears to have had its day? Did you remove all that rust or how did you clean it up? All the metal is there. Nothing eaten through yet. But no, I did not remove the rust. Doing so would just make it rust even worse. Having a coating or rust helps neutralize the metal and won't rust near as bad as if I wire-brushed it and created bare metal. And - can't paint it since it gets so hot. I DO wish it was stainless steel instead or plain steel. I have no idea if a new lock-ring is available or not. It may be hard to see in the photo, but a new lock-ring wouldn't fit any tigher then this one. This one just looks kind of lousy due to the surface rust. I think it was galvanized originally, and the constant heat burnt off the zinc coating. It's can't fall off now. The last time I needed parts for a Dometic of this vintage, I had to get them "new old stock" from a reseller, not a dealer. The old Dometic company has been bought out several times and the new owners don't seem very interested in selling parts for older refrigerators. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SCRIPAL Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 This is good info. to know, thanks. I would have wire brushed it thinking that would be helpful. I think a stainless ring would be the best fix but I suspect it would have to be fabricated. Once I get mobile with this new hip, I am going to check mine out to make sure I don't have a similar problem. Again, we are fortunate things turned out the way they did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 Here's a Dometic diagram showing that lock-tab that gets rotated 90 degrees to lock in place. I found a place that shows a "lock" in available parts list, but no photo and no part number so I have no idea if it is the same thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maineah Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 While trying to find any cases if a fridge setting fire to gas stations (I found a lot of "it can happen" and zero cases of it happening) I did run across insurance co's figures of fires in MH's apparently mostly from leaking propane lines and the gas fridge heater setting it off. These things are pretty old taking a beating for many years maybe it would be a real good ideal to inspect all of them every so often. I'm going to do mine now I sure it never has been touched. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ctgriffi Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 In the past, after cleaning up a rusty part that's near high heat, I've hit the whole thing with a few coats of black Rustoleum BBQ grill, high-heat paint. Just an idea... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero Posted August 14, 2015 Author Share Posted August 14, 2015 While trying to find any cases if a fridge setting fire to gas stations (I found a lot of "it can happen" and zero cases of it happening) I did run across insurance co's figures of fires in MH's apparently mostly from leaking propane lines and the gas fridge heater setting it off. These things are pretty old taking a beating for many years maybe it would be a real good ideal to inspect all of them every so often. I'm going to do mine now I sure it never has been touched. Until now, I had no idea that the connection between the gas burner to the chimney was so flimsy and also did not realize the burner has no other support. I just assumed that since these things are made primarily for RVs, they'd be designed to take a lot of bouncing around. That being said, we were on a road about as bad as a washboarded road can get and the air-bags in the suspension make it all even worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maineah Posted August 14, 2015 Share Posted August 14, 2015 My Nova Star had a 9 leaf pack rear spring and I was in the back making lunch while a friend drove and it's no wonder things shake loose! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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