Sealey AB 160 Workshop heater problem

[Muz]

Ive had several .. latest Sealey one has worked fine for ages but wouldnt get going this season when the cold weather came back .. so as usual .. it was down to diagnostics the fan kept wowing... speeding up and slowing down.

Initially I suspected the motor was on the way out ..so I phoned Dingbro to get a replacement .... then I stuck my thinking cap on .. turns out the motor has a vane pump built into its arse end that acts as a compressor. Also the filter infront of this was clogged. After stripping and re building several times, it proved to be the vanes and pump dragging .. and that was slowing the motor.

What I'm getting at .. is that if your heater isnt working right .. you could be filling your work shops with a heap of carcinogenic smoke does it look like this ?

[Muz]

What it should be looking like is this Img_38hh55.jpg

[Muz]

So all stuff getting burnt cleanly .. keeping you a bit safer folks ..

Now you should realise diesel burns hotter than kerosine so .. if you are mixing fuels you need to be aware the heater air flow needs adjusted with which ever fuel you burn .. most come set up for kerosine apparently ? This one is running diesel .. but had obviously lost its tune over the years .. but is now on top form

[Muz]

Now the satisfying end to the story is .. that I phoned Dingbro for the price of a new motor believing it to be the problem .. they quoted £389 +VAT .. I think the wole heater cost me £425 a few years ago .. and .. all it took to fix it was a wee bit of grey matter .. my new specs.... and a couple of screw drivers

[v8druid]

if that is anything like a blown, oil fired burner, heating boiler Muz, which I believe they are - I have a sort of square-ish one - there is a nozzle that wears/needs replacing occasionally.

They're pence (just bought two for a Worcester Danesmore, ready to service it) and are usually differing nozzles for different fuels- kero/gas oil - 28/32 second fue oil. The nozzle is very often the cause of many problems with space heaters and usually overlooked.
If it ain't atomising properly, the lil' bugger'll never burn clean

As you say ........ the application of a little thought, a bit of investigation, a tad of effort and it's amazing what can be achieved.
As I said somewhere a while back ....... how the hell do some folk manage to get through life unable 'to do' ??

[Muz]

I bought this one specifically because it can burn both fuels with the same set up. But when I went to RTFM (I know epic fail) It said that it was set for kero and the air flow needs adjusted down to burn diesel because of the extra heat it produces ... now I'd have thought it would have been the other way around with kero being lighter ?

[ianoz]

What be this Heater thing you speak of

[Muz]

What be this Heater thing you speak of

You're not allowed on this thread

[ianoz]

You're not allowed on this thread

What are you gunna do ????
Ban me and my Summer heat LOL

[Muz]

Well .. all I can hope for is that we dont get a winter like 2010 for a while .. frost came at the end of October and it never left until March the next year .. uncommonly cold for us, and it killed the construction industry here because you couldnt lay brick or concrete .. were just not set up for that sort of prolonged spell. Its a shame I cant take the heat of summer that you guys get .. otherwise I'd have emigrated before now ... infact I know of a few that have done it, and ended coming back home because they just couldn't handle it. Whats the mercury at today dude ?

[ianoz]

Top of28 C today Muz

[Muz]

I did some googling ... Apparently the hottest Glasgow ever got was 31.4 degrees on August 4th 1974

[v8druid]

Well .. all I can hope for is that we dont get a winter like 2010 for a while .. frost came at the end of October and it never left until March the next year .. uncommonly cold for us, and it killed the construction industry here because you couldnt lay brick or concrete .. were just not set up for that sort of prolonged spell. Its a shame I cant take the heat of summer that you guys get .. otherwise I'd have emigrated before now ... infact I know of a few that have done it, and ended coming back home because they just couldn't handle it. Whats the mercury at today dude ?

I'll second that - first snow was 31st October and IIRC it was still about in March - Dropped to -14 here, over Christmas/January and stayed down there for 3 weeks.
****me it was cold for weeeeeeks after too.

'09/10 winter wasn't a lot better, but not so cold - snowed every Wednesday, for 8 weeks, from the beginning of January on.
I was running out of space in the yard, to push it to, with me snow blade, on the the 4 ton FLT-
8 ft high all round the sides and 10ft high pile in the middle, an' me yard was an acre.

Got pissed off with clearing it!!

Got a duck on me team now though ........... so let it snow !! (not really - fkn hate the stuff)!!

[Muz]

so let it snow !! (not really - fkn hate the stuff)!!

Haha .. thats me all over .. oh look its snowing ? .. right thats this week fkd ... break out the snow clearing gear

[Muz]

Well ... its good to have this repository of information .. the old workshop heater did the same again and I was sure I had a thread on here about it ? ... so another strip down and this time I was more concentrating on the vane pump which was dragging and causing the electric motor to slow down. This time I cleaned out the polymer pump rotor and vanes with solvent cleaner to get rid of the carbon build up, also it seems you need to wipe the flat face of the rotor over some 180 grit to flatten it, as it develops some wear marks against the faces of the pump body and end cap that holds it all in place .. I didnt lube the plastic rotor or vanes ... not sure what to use if I did so ? looks like one of these ... images.png

Still .. judging by the posting dates .. thats been another 3 years of service before further inspection required