M380 Hurricane Heater

[cmillsap]

(02-21-2013 15:27)Itchintogo Wrote:  From what Chuck explained and from what I can see with the picture (and I don't know squat about Hurricane heaters BTW) I think Chuck could take the Zone 2 hose ( the one with no valve at the TEE and I will come back to this) off and shut the red valve. Then he could flush only zone 2 out and the coolant would empty out of the left hand hose bib. Similarly he could flush through zone 1 by disconnecting the hose with the yellow handle and with the red valve off it too would evacuate from the left hose bib.

Then he could back flush the heating unit by reverse flushing from the hot feed and still with the red valve shut he could open the right hose bib and evacuate from there and not contaminate the zones. Or attach a hose to the right bib and flush out the heater and evacuate at the feed line just before the Tee. Depending which direction he wanted to go.

All of this and because there are so few hours usage makes me think there is a valve somewhere in zone 2 that is shut off. Air is a good thought as well. I wonder why BB would install a yellow valve for Zone 1 and nothing for Zone 2? If you had a leak in zone 2 you would have no way of shutting it off. That does not make sense to me. So at a minimum I would install a yellow valve in zone 2 for that. But I suspect there is one somewhere you have not found yet.

Chuck I don't know who you bought the coach from but any chance you can phone the PO? This valve or valves may be closer to the register or at the return tee where it goes back to one return line. Just my thoughts. Hope it helps.

Good ideas, Gary.

I do not believe there is another valve on the supply line to zone 2. If there is, it's d**n well hidden. I think(and George Morris concurs) that the valve on zone 1 was an after thought by BB because zone 1 is so short it builds less head pressure on the fluid. That was robbing the fluid from the longer and more restrictive (4 registers) running to the rear of the coach. The Huricane is located in bay 1 on the drivers side, so zone 2 has to be at least about 4 times as long. George says that valve need to be about half closed to balance out the fluid flow to both circuits.

Although the BB engineers did good work building the M380, they missed the boat on a few items.

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(02-21-2013 15:43)Arcticdude Wrote:  Gary,
I'll bet the zone 1 valve is a BB add on after they realized that it flowed much better than zone 2 and needed a restriction in zone 1 to equalize the flow to both zones. Could be wrong, but if GM is saying there isn't a valve, I would not be looking for a valve.

Chuck,
Just joking about the AH! And, have you ever had heat out of zone 2 while you've owned her? If not, the air blockage or a kinked hose would be my thoughts. Any chance the PO never used the heat?

You're got it right about the valve being an add on. I ran the Hurricane during the inspection when I bought the coach, however I may not have checked all the registers, I just can't remember.

The Hurricane only has 300 hours on it and it was owned by a Dr. in Florida. I doubt it was used enough for the P.O. to realize there was a problem. Plus here in AZ, I never needed to pay much attention to it to make sure it was working properly. I just happened to find the problem when we were in Las Vegas last week and needed a little heat in the coach. I found that not only did I have a problem with the hydronic heater, one of the electric heaters didn't work either.

"O Well"... Just another day in the life of a Wanderlodge owner.