Atwood Stove Problems

Last camping season, on our last trip out, we started having this weird flare up with our front burner of the stove. We were hoping it was a wind thing, as we had read that on windy days, it can cause flare ups.

Fast forward to the first trip of this year (which I still need to do a trip report for - I'll get it up this week!) and we're having the same problem. Well, crap. Now we needed to do some research about what was causing the issue.

Thank goodness for the Lance Owner's forum. They've saved us so much time & money. Seriously.

Anyhow, someone recently posted about the same problem with their Atwood stove. Turns out that Atwood decided plastic bushings were a good idea. Um, right. Plastic bushings, which connect to the valves that provide gas to the burners, which produce fire. Nothing could ever go wrong with those!

As you travel, the burners come loose from the valves. When that happens, the bushings aren't connected properly & they can melt. That's the gist of it anyhow. While we were having issues with the front burner, the other two were coming loose too.

All three burners

Melted bushing

Front burner, melted bushing, new bushing

Close up of the melted bushing & new bushing

Where the burner naturally sat to line up the screw holes. Notice that the valve & burner still aren't all that well connected. 

The screw hole needs to be up slightly more in order for everything to line up properly. We ended up bending the metal at the back (where the screw hole is) to push the burner into the valve.

We ended up bending the metal in the back of the burner (where the screw hole is) to push the burner into the valve on all three burners. Hopefully this fix holds for a while. At least now we know how to fix it if we need to!

(--Heather)