Had the lil Grand for about 6 weeks now, always had a dead mouse smell in the kitchen in the morning. Should have dried out and dissipated by now but.....nope. Ok- into the basement, crawl all the way up to the kitchen drawers, nothing! Ugh. Working my way back I got a wiff of that smell by the furnace. Got my propane sniffer out and probed every propane connection in the basement, nada, and it didn't smell like propane. Pull front cover off furnace, bubble juice the brass elbow/3/8" pipe connection and bingo. A small bubble after 101-5 seconds. It was just enough of a leak to mix with the atmosphere and cause a misleading stink. I searched for instructions on my SF35v but could not find anything much, so I just winged it. Unit comes out super easy after disconnecting the ducts, rotate until the keys line up with the slots and they pop right off the casing, remove some anchor screws and it slides right out. On the bench, remove the belt-line screws and gently slide the core out of the casing and the rest it elementary taking lots of pics with phone for wiring references to remove blower assbly to access the elbow fitting- threads on same were a bit choppy so, for a few bucks, replace it. Could not find the exact elbow up here on the mountain so I made one from components til the correct one arrives. Also did a belt-n-suspenders with tape and dope. 4 full turns on both fittings and stuff the core back in the hole and sniff/bubble test with post-regulator line pressure (only!), no leaks. Pull the core, re-install in casing, re-install the whole thing and leak/function test. Ok. Easy-peasy. One note- the factory uses one-time crimp nuts on the wiring leading to the furnace. That needs to be cut and re-spliced. I used adhesive filled heat shrink spade connectors with a touch of Tesa tape at the connection to keep dust out and this way if it needs to come out again just remove the tape, un-plug the wires and slide it out, no cutting. The casing is SHARP, everywhere, wear gloves if you don't like a lot of little cuts and tape or loom shield any wires that even look like will get close to the casing. ziptie stuff accordingly. I actually found two wires that had cuts on them-lil dab of liquid e-tape fixed that. The blower also has two hidden tangs that go into the core case so tilt it up then over to remove, and engage those FIRST when reinstalling to avoid snapping them off, then install the blower gasket and then the screws when the blower if flush with the base. Keep the LP pipe/elbow covered at all times to avoid having something go into the gas valve block and invert same when removing doped fittings to prevent chips from falling in etc. Saved a TON of $$ doing this myself. It was easy- just go slow and be gentle during teardown.
- pv.
- pv.
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