Middle burner FAIL


 
DanJC

DanJC

TVWBB Fan
Can't get this middle burner to light up correctly!

I've taken it out and cleaned it -- no blockages. I took apart the manifold -- nothing seems off.

Any thoughts?


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Do you have three knobs for 3 burners? If that middle burner has it's own adjustment knob, that knob should be attached to a valve, and there should be an air intake screen in the front of the tube near the valves. Maybe that screen is clogged??? Will the grill reach a normal temperature with the two functional burners on high? I've had issues with my regulator before where I could light off, but couldn't get enough gas flow to get the grill above 200F or so... Gas regular/spring/diaphragm was stuck.... there's a procedure for fixing that.
 
Thanks for the ideas!

I actually figured it out almost immediately after posting. I have parts from two grills. One used the middle burner w/ holes on the sides. One used a middle burner w/ holes on the top. I switched out the middle burners (and the corresponding cross bar), and it fired right up!

I think the manifolds for the two different middle burners must differ slightly? Can anyone confirm this?

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Early vs late burners. The early ones had two rows of holes and may well be the much-desired 304 stainless steel.
 
You ever wonder why the burners front and rear have the holes on the sides and not on the top?
 
If the screen was clogged the flames would not be blue they would be orange and very dirty. It also has nothing to do with the style of the burner. There is not enough gas getting to it. Sadly lots of uninformed speculation here. Close the tank valve, and the control valves. Remove the tank connection. Now properly reconnect, slowly open the tank valve than try to relight the burners. Odds are the OPV device is tripped
 
Me, too. I think it is most likely for reliable flame propagation across the crossover tube, but it could also serve to avoid localized heating at the apex of the flavo bar that might tend to shorten its life. Along those lines, I wonder if there was an early concern about the crossover tube igniting the center burner reliably and that's why the holes are on the side of the older center burner.

The early FlameCheck system on some of the higher end models shows there was some concern about flame-outs.
 
I always thought the reason was to avoid the gunk getting on them and clogging them up. Even with good flavo bars, there is splatter. If you take the Q grills, those burners have the holes on top and routinely need cleaning out. Of course they don't have flavorizer bars directly over them, but they do have shielding via the grates. If you pull an old set of burners out of a grill and look at them, the top is always more gunked up and corroded.
 
Ed Pinnell said:
You ever wonder why the burners front and rear have the holes on the sides and not on the top?
Click to expand...
The front and rear burners are close to the front and back walls of the cook box. Maybe the idea was to "throw" the heat inwards to avoid overheating the cook box walls, or maybe the grill heated up more evenly that way. Maybe both reasons. It would also direct flames to the holes in the crossover and aid in lighting the rear burner.

Gerry
 
G Schafer said:
The front and rear burners are close to the front and back walls of the cook box. Maybe the idea was to "throw" the heat inwards to avoid overheating the cook box walls, or maybe the grill heated up more evenly that way. Maybe both reasons. It would also direct flames to the holes in the crossover and aid in lighting the rear burner.

Gerry
Click to expand...
It makes intuitive sense to me that the grill heats more evenly if the side flames are pointed toward the middle, but who knows?
 
Anyway, I'm a bit ashamed by this, but I think a big part of the reason the burners weren't working properly was that the grease tray was not in place. It's attached now, and this thing gets hot as hell.
 
DanJC said:
Anyway, I'm a bit ashamed by this, but I think a big part of the reason the burners weren't working properly was that the grease tray was not in place. It's attached now, and this thing gets hot as hell.
Click to expand...
Yes, that will do it!
 
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