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Old 09-02-2008, 03:09 PM   #21
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Dave,

These images are all of the air intake for my Airtronic Deisel Furnace. Although the unit can't be seen here, in a 50 floorplan it is off to the left and above the van floor near all the water piping you see here.

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Old 09-04-2008, 11:13 AM   #22
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Wonderful...I never would have thought.
I was assuming the air intake would have been inside or close to the heater unit itself. I'll bet I have the same problem you did. Guess its time for a fix....crap.
Thanks much.
Dave
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Old 10-14-2008, 11:35 PM   #23
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Jeffrey,
How has your Airtronic been working since your major fix?

I need to get heat. We were in the Death Valley area this weekend and it dropped to 28 during the day. Craig and Dave basked in the heat while I left the penthouse down and froze.

I was leaning toward the Webasto Blue Heat like Jeff@Work but he has recently had problems at high altitudes. The Espar is nice becuase of the 2 fuel pumps.

Also is this ticking noise of the pump that was referred to in another post bothersome to you?

steve
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Old 10-22-2008, 02:26 PM   #24
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Steve I am happy to say that my problem was the High Alitude switch was wired up backwards during an upgrade and the heater seems to be working correctly now. I still plan to look at the intake. It kept me out of some muddy areas overt the past week up in Nor-Cal. Also something to look into is Espar says not to use fuel additives but I really don't have any experence with them. I wonder if injector cleaner will mess the Espar stuff up
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Old 10-22-2008, 04:08 PM   #25
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Steve,

Believe it or not, the heater crapped out again on my Mono/Bishop trip a couple of weeks ago. Got tons of the dreaded white smoke. Somehow, by resetting the error code on the thermostat, unplugging the heater harness and the controller and then putting it all back, I got the heater to fire up three times out of about 30 attempts, yet I'll never know why. It did not act normally, though. It blasted full bore until I turned the thermostat down, causing it to pause, as it should, but when it got cold again and the thermo sent a start signal, it coughed white smoke. I began to hit the heater controller with a heavy object. Maybe that helped. It really altered my mood on that trip. I talked to some Espar people, who promptly ignored me.

Not happy.
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Old 10-24-2008, 07:51 PM   #26
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeffrey
Steve,

Believe it or not, the heater crapped out again on my Mono/Bishop trip a couple of weeks ago. I talked to some Espar people, who promptly ignored me.

Not happy.
Great
Now my confidence is back to a low point. I’ll probable throw in an extra heavy duty sleeping bag for the winter. It would suck to get into cold weather with a 40 degree bag.


The Espar guy who worked on my Hydronic was only slightly helpful at the most and I don’t think he was being fully honest with me on my unit.
http://www.sportsmobileforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=1729
I wonder what Earth Roamer use in their rigs, and if they are Espar products, how many owners are having problems. For that matter, how many SMB’ers with Espar components are having problems. At least I know that it’s not fuel additives. I have mega hours on my Hydronic water heater but in total running time the Airtronic has as much or more because the water heater is used for a maximum of 2 hours when used. Both failed close to the same time. I never got the white smoke from my Airtronic but did with the Hydronic. The Hydronic went to total failure where the Airtronic has been intermittent. I hope both continue to work correctly. I think Scatter said he had to change the glow plug. I went with Espar to keep maintenance to minimum. It seems like a mistake but time will tell for sure. If both were designed to rack in and out easily I wouldn’t be so concerned but Espar should be more up front with people who have problems. I feel like I’m dealing with Ford. You never get the truth. At least SMB has tried in my case.
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Old 10-28-2008, 02:10 PM   #27
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"For that matter, how many SMB’ers with Espar components are having problems."...

Add me to the list. My furnace wouldn't heat a few weeks ago, it just made lots of light gray smoke. I got home and tried it again and it didn't work the first time (got smoke and no heat) but it sorta worked (got less smoke and did get heat) the second try. This last weekend I camped in the Cascades and it was 30 degrees in the morning... and the furnace made smoke and no heat...

Where to start to trouble shoot it? Other than looking to see where the intake pipe was (above the rear diff) I have not done anything with it yet.

Brian
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Old 10-28-2008, 07:18 PM   #28
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We are not having problems, but ours is also brand new.

Is there any maintenance needed for thses units?
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Old 10-29-2008, 10:39 AM   #29
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We have had our Espar furnace for about a year now. We've had absolutely zero problems with our's but we also haven't been in too many dusty environments. It has worked great at sea level and at altitude.

As far as maintenance goes, I know you are supposed to run it once a month. I also think you need to clean/replace the glow plugs periodically, although we have done that yet.
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Old 10-29-2008, 02:38 PM   #30
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Has anybody heard of a place that services espar products other than the guy SMB sends them off to?

One of the mechanics at work is interested in doing side work if he can get Espar's blessing. I just figured because they are used in diesel semi trucks there would be service centers all over the place.

I don't know how difficult it would be to pull these units (my heater is in a hard to get to spot) but if they have to be serviced every couple of years it would be nice if someone on the west coast could work on them.

Scatter, didn't you do some maintenance on the airtronic???
Dave
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