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New Suburban Water Heater Won't Light

EZinColo
Explorer
Explorer
Howdy,
New member from Colorado. We have a 1998 Gulf Stream Conquest (23 ft Class C)

I installed a new Suburban water heater (WH) - gas only. After connecting it up I hit the WH switch in the coach and heard the burner light. The tank was empty so I turned it off immediately. After filling the tank I hit the reset button on the face of the WH, toggled the WH switch and the "pilot out" light went on. I cycled the switch a few times (per the manual) and this light went off, but got no ignition.

I got down and checked the three wires you have to connect to the WH for installation (red, blue and yellow). I used crimp connectors - which I'm not crazy about, although the coach is full of them - but thought maybe one was loose. So I gave each a couple tugs. I also read about cheap controller boards failing (from a burned component) so I opened the controller board enclosure, checked the board, the multi-wire connector and the high voltage wire to the ignitor. Everything was good so I screwed it back to the wall.
I guess I'd left the WH switch ON because about 10 seconds later the burner lit. Woohoo!

Assuming the crimp connectors were indeed the problem, I turned off the WH switch and decided to go outside and solder those connections (can't reach wires from the inside). Before I did this I wanted to hear the burner light again, so I turned the WH switch back on - no joy.

I went ahead and soldered the connections anyway and tried the WH switch (after hitting the reset button again) - nothing. But I didn't get the "pilot out" light either.

For the record, Iโ€™ve got 12.8V across my coach battery. Iโ€™ve also checked the DC fuses several times and nothing is blown.

At this point I'm out of ideas. Does anyone have a suggestion?
What am I missing?


Thanks a lot.

Eric
1 REPLY 1

dougrainer
Nomad
Nomad
1. NO such thing as a Pilot light, on your model. Just a standard flame.
2. You need to post Model number of the new W/H
3. Also, the W/H has a tri start board. It will try 3 times to light with pauses of about 15 seconds between attempts. Does it do that?
4. Turn the gas OFF, attempt to light and let it go for 5 minutes. DOES THE RED LIGHT COME ON? It should. If not, you may have miswired the new heater. Did the NEW W/H come with the same color 3 wires as the old one?
5. It could be as simple as a bad Ignition module. Doug