Hi BernieDawg,
What would cause a flame to emerge right out of the connection where the spindle enters the burner on my Force 10 boat heater? Is it an o-ring/seal gone bad or? I can blow the flame out, but it wants to come back occasionally. I’m leaning towards the burner not being pre-warmed enough as it also wants to flame more than the nice red/blue I should be getting at the burner.
Thank you!
“Leaky Flame”
Hi “Leaky Flame”
You need to tighten up the spindle nut. Provided there’s still enough graphite packing around the spindle, a slight tighten should reseal the spindle packing around the spindle. I often do this “on the fly”, ie: with the burner running. I carefully snug up the spindle nut with a 10mm open end wrench until the little flame just goes out.
Here’s a cut away view photo that a guy on the internet made. He made it wrong. The graphite spindle packing and the spindle ring should be swapped in position as I’ve indicated in the photo. The little brass spindle ring has a flat side and a cupped side. The cupped side should be facing toward the spindle nut and touching the graphite packing. The flat side of the brass spindle ring should face toward the jet and be touching the large threads on the shaft of the spindle.
And, you can see an online repair manual for your burner/heater at this link:
Here’s a copy of that webpage as a PDF file you can store on your computer/tablet/phone for reference when you are working in your boat:
Good luck!
BernieDawg