Furnace Repair & Compressor

[Doug & Sharron Kershaw]

Have a question about our 1978 Mini Winni.  How do we find out where the propane is leaking from.  If we have the propane on for a day or two with nothing running it starts to smell in the motor home.  We also can't get the furnace to keep running and it' very difficult to light. 

[Doug & Sharron Kershaw]

Also looking for a compressor for our roof top Coleman air conditioner.  Have to get the number off the thing though. 

[Lakota Wolf]

If the rooftop a/c is original,,,, the best bet is to replace it with new,,, The newer models are more efficient, and the older ones are hard to get parts for and hardly no one will recharge them with R 12, and will cost you about $200 for the retrofit kit and a labor,service charge.

With your gas leak,, Like Russ mentioned is use soapy water around connections,, and even along the tubing itself,,,, A lot of leaks stem from shut off valves and T connections.

[Doug & Sharron Kershaw]

Thanks for the info.  Wish us luck with propane leak.  The a/c will be probably a next year thing.  The priority this year has to be getting the furnace up and running properly.

[Russell E Johnson]

Checking for propane leaks is a tedious task. It takes patience. You use soapy water to check all the joints. If there is a leak it should bubble. I say "should" because we had a leak in our 87 Southwind that I could not find. Finally had to have a propane company come with their sniffer to seek it out. The service man went over the same joint 4 times before his machine finally gave him a definite readout of a leak. The leak was not strong enough to make the soapy water bubble. 

The way you describe the smell not showing up for a day or two sounds just like our problem. Just not enough of a leak to be serious, but enough to cause a smell maybe just enough for the propane sensor not to go off. Our alarm never did sound off. 

I am not familiar with the type of furnace that is in your MH. Can you tell us about it, then someone should have the knowledge to give you some pointers. I suspect it needs a good cleaning and probably some adjustment to the igniter or pilot light depending on the type of furnace you have.

Good luck with locating a compressor for your Coleman AC unit. Both of our Coleman AC units died last summer. So we had one new unit installed this year, and hopefully will get the second one installed next year.  Rebuilding them was not feasible, parts for those old units are just not available anymore. 

[Doug & Sharron Kershaw]

Thanks so much for all the info.  I think the furnace is more important to us being we are up here in North Western Ontario.  Not nearly as many air conditioner days as there are furnace days.  It was 2 Celsius this morning so we would have wanted that furnace for sure.  It is a Coleman Furnace, not sure where to find the number but I took a photo. 

Wish us luck finding the propane leak, now we have an idea of where to start. 

[Doug & Sharron Kershaw]

The compressor we are searching for is Tecumseh RK160AT. 

[Rich Thomas]

One thing I would mention about the gas leak. I have a 78 Travelcraft and on occasion I would smell a faint wisp of gas. What I found was when traveling and the bath room door locked open the door handle would sometimes hit against the oven gas valve and even times when just walking around the coach. It has two off positions; one for full off and the other for when the pilot light is lit. The door handle would move the valve from full off to oven off.( oven off position is so you can turn the oven off and the pilot stays lit). Being of the same year, you may want to take a look at your oven gas valve and see if it might be like mine and have the two off positions and inadvertently on the oven off position. With Russ and Lakota's good advice you should be able to find that nasty bugger and be up and running.

[Doug & Sharron Kershaw]

Thanks Rich.  Ours does have the two different off settings.  Will have to check that out for sure.  Really appreciate the help from everyone. 

[david craft]

some of the earlier range ovens have petcocks under the range top. mmaybe post a pic from under there. there could be a set screw flame adjustment as well. lines to the pilots run from the oven thermostat or the manifold pipe. you could always get a 3/8 flare plug and plug off the line to each appliance if you cant find a leak in the gas lines. this is a last resort to leak locating...hopefully you dont need to go there. new dometic acs are being sold for 450 complete. youll take a lot of weight off the roof as well. check for sag. you can shim between the roof rafters and sheet metal to get some relief from pooling if necessary. water needs to be below the pan of the ac.