Lune Valley burner

A special section just for steam engines and boilers, as without these you may as well fit a sail.
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ron parola
Steam on Deck
Steam on Deck
Posts: 55
Joined: Fri Jan 29, 2016 3:56 am
Boat Name: victoria

Lune Valley burner

Post by ron parola » Tue May 31, 2016 12:02 am

Moving along on boiler, but here is some news on a Lune Valley style burner I've been FIGHTING for the last few years; When I got the boat it had a Lune Valley type WITHOUT an adjustable metering needle, and it did work fine for a while.... but something changed. I'm thinking that the diesel fuel had changed; ie they pulled the sulphur out of it, years ago, ( absolutely KILLED all the orings in Ford diesels, we made money THERE!), this causing major vaporizer plugging. We went to Clear lake a couple of weeks ago and it now was performing as it ought, didn't touch it for three days. The only complaint was I could overfuel it, thus cooling down the vaporizer coil, but we were able to hold 150 psi no problem and no coking; I pulled it apart today in anticipation going down the Petaluma river this weekend.
What I've done over a few years is to keep shortening the vaporizer, it's 5/16th stainless, made an adjustable needle for the jet so you can turn the burner up or down without messing with the fuel pressure, this keeps the velocity up so it hits the steel target and blasts out sideways nicely. Also the fuel goes through a copper pipe against the boiler underneath the insulation, this keeps a pool of warm fuel whether or not the burner is on low or high, that is about 3 feet long, the fuel always comes out JUST wet not a complete vapour. When the burner is on low ( after the boiler is hot of course) the fuel pipe is quite warm to the touch, sorry didn't think of bringing a pyrometer, when the burner is on full, it's quite cooler, so it could be a bit longer. All in all quite satisfied, and it's not noisy, a dull rumble, and it's running 30 psi. Possibly a cable in the vaporizer would help further ( like a Stanley) but that may just weld itself in. When I had been testing the burner previously it was next to my house; the fuel in the tanks was at 80 to 90 degrees, when it was in the water.... well it was at water temp... too cool! I'm hoping this might help anybody else struggling with one of these. rp
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