thetford fridge on gas

[blu]

Hi folks

About to go on first non hook up outing and thought i would fire everything up on gas and familiarise myself with everything.

When trying to light the fridge i turn it to gas and an auto ignition starts going and i then turn the gas control nob up and hold it in.the fridge lights immediatly as it should but when i release the gas nob it goes out and auto ignition starts again.

Am i missing something.

Havent even got as far as the water heater yet.

Is it time to call a service engineer.

Thanks in advance folks

Please help

 

[SillyBilly]

I think you will find that it has automatic gas cut-off as a safety feature. This usually consists of a probe which when heated by a flame keeps the gas on. You will probably have to hold down the gas knob for about 10 secs to give the probe time to warm up

 

[DJM]

1).Make sure the refrigerator gas isolation valve is fully open.

2).Ensure your gas bottle valve is also open.

3). Allow sufficient time for the gas supply pipe to the fridge to fill with gas.

4)If the fridge main burner repeatedly keeps going out then maybe be there is some dust in the jet.

 

[blu]

Hi folks

Cheers for replies

I have done all of that many times over except the last one.

So were is the jet that might be dusty or is this a service engineer job.

I am a competent mechanic so could i do this myself?

Cheers people

 

[blu]

Hi again

And by the way everything else works fine on gas.

Just the fridge that wont light

 

[MikeAce]

I have the thetford n80e and it sometimes has the same issue.

I find that removal of the thermocouple connections to the gas valve and cleaning them normally does the trick.

To get to it its at the top of the fridge, this involves me taking the sink out, the whole job takes 15 minutes incuding sink removal and refitting. there are also no gas connections that you need to tinker with so no need for everyone to start jumping on the gas installer competency band wagon.

 

[blu]

Hi Mike.

Yes thats the same fridge as mine.Could you give any further info on what these thermocouples look like so i can id them

Cheers

Sean

 

[MikeAce]

Sure thing Blu, a thermocouple lookes like a small length of copper tubing. (infact it is) and only a few mm in diameter.

On the very top right hand side of the fridge, as viewed from above you will see that towards the front right hand side the gas valve is sat, looks like an aluminium manifold with a few pipes going into it, the smallest pipe will be the thermocouple, on the end, if you are unsure at this point check that the pipe you are looking at has 2 spade connectors running off to the gas needle level thingy on the front of the panel. (the one that tells you that its lit)

just remove the nut that holds it into the gas valve, like i said, there is no gas inside this pipe so do not be worried about its removal, its a safety device so the worst thing that could happen is it will continue not to work.

scuff the conections on the end of the thermocouple up with some grit paper and i normally tend to clean the spade connectors up as well, hopefully this will sort it for you as the fridge works really well on gas, much better then electric in fact, the electric gets it cold but the gas makes my beer frosty.

i hope this is some help to you, good luck, you will be amazed how simple this is.

 

[blu]

Hi Mike

Youre a genius

I took the sink out earlier and saw the gas fitting but wasnt sure what i was looking at so i just tapped everything with my spanner and hey presto the fridge lights first time.

Thanks a lot for your help

Kind Regards

Sean