Volvo Diesal Cabin Heaters

[Freedom]

Hello all, I am looking to tap into the vast knowledge base of this forums membership. I have a 1993 Catalina 34 (1267) located in San Diego. The original owner had a VOLVO FLYGOMOTOR diesel installed when they purchased the boat new in 1993 in Washington. I have used the heater only a handful of times (San Diego) and it worked great up until last year. Last winter I turned it on to break the chill on one of our cold 55 Degree mornings and nothing but cold air came out. I heard the igniter clicking and the blower fan turned on but no heat. Eventually I started to smell diesel so I immediately turned it off. I took the cover off the furnace located in the port lazarette and there was some fuel that had leaked out. when the furnace is turned on there is fuel leaking from a fuel line and what I think is a small fuel pump or filter. Is it clogged fuel line, bad fuel pump, ??? I contacted Scan Marine in Washington and they suggested that I just replace the entire unit which doesn't seem right to me. The heater has always worked flawlessly over the past four years when needed up until last winter and the heater unit itself looks brand new. Any help guidance would be much appreciated.

[Paulus]

Some suggestions:  Fix the fuel leak, check the fuel filter.  Also check if you can to see if the glow plug is covered in soot(there should be a screen that might meed cleaning). Clean or replace it.  How difficult is it to remove and have it serviced?
Let is know what to find.
Paul

[mainesail]

Your "Flygomotor" is actually an Ardic heater. In the 90's Ardic was purchased by Eberspacher (Espar) and I believe they can still source parts from Europe..

[Freedom]

Well after some extensive online research I found a company in England called Espar. I reached out to them for support and this is the reply that received. As with most boat components, noting last forever. I will be attempting to do the repairs as they suggested and also check the glow plug, and flame sensor.


Good morning, thank you for making contact.

The most common fault with these heaters is that the fuel injection pipe which runs from the outside of the heater body to inside the combustion chamber atomiser becomes blocked of partially blocked and this then causes the pulse damper on the fuel pump to start leaking. As there are no injection pipes left anymore for this heater, the current cheap fix is to try and ultra-sonically clean the injection pipe while attempting to glue the pulse damper back together with chemical metal.

If the heater were here with us, we have approximately a 75% success rate when attempting this repair, of course our engineers are very well versed with these heaters, it is likely to be quite an undertaking for someone with little experience.

We are now very short of parts for 041-D and therefore Scan Marine's suggestion to replace it with a new heater might actually be the best suggestion.

Regards.

Tim

[rmbrown]

I just installed a Wallas 30GB that I purchased from Scan Marine and I gotta say, they've been pretty amazing to work with... if you were going to buy a new one, I'd sure recommend them.

I love my Wallas and, now that it's too late to do you any good, I'll pass along a piece of information that I've learned over the last 6 months.  The best way to keep any heater going is run that sucker on high for 15-30 minutes every 2-3 months.

As for fixing it, man I've got nothing.  It's a complicated beast that can kill you in your sleep if it doesn't work right.  Be careful!