Eko Cleaning Suggestion

[JTWALL]

When you are doing your annual cleaning, I suggest you do the following:
1. Remove the inner front cover [holding the fan(s)].
2. Mark the location of the primary air gates on either side of the boiler.
3. Remove both primary air gates.
4. Inspect for and remove any "crud" that has accumulated inside the primary air tubes.
A long flat-head screw driver seems to work well.
5. Remove any accumulated "crud" from around the primary air inlets inside the boiler combustion chamber.
6. Vacuum each secondary air tube.
7. Reassemble.

If the "crud" gets deep enough, it will block primary air flow into the combustion chamber.

Regards.
JT

PS: to see how I modified my boiler to allow adjustment with everything assembled, check out my YouTube video. Easy to do and makes adjustments much easier.

 

[ihookem]

That is a good attempt to modify the stupid idiotic way the boiler was designed. Eko leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the engineering. It is a good simple boiler though.

 

[JTWALL]

That is a good attempt to modify the stupid idiotic way the boiler was designed. Eko leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to the engineering. It is a good simple boiler though.

I agree with your assessment. With just a little thought and minimal effort/cost, they could have a jewel; instead they are content to produce Yugos (if you remember what they were).

Since I purchased this back in 2008, I have:

• modified primary air gates
• corrected cobbed-up wiring
• eliminated the need to place controller in standby when adding wood (everything is controlled by the bypass lever.) How nice!
• removed the worthless heat-exchanger cleaning system (what a joke)
• corrected the secondary air mismatch between the metal tubes and ceramic nozzle (I wonder how many units they sold with that defect?)
• designed a nozzle plate that prevents fuel from falling into the lower chamber and protects ceramic nozzle from erosion (might get a second year on the nozzle plate, but another one is built and ready for use if needed)
• installed a thermocouple near the nozzle discharge and inside flue so that I can monitor and make precise air adjustments. No guessing.

Any resemblance to an OEM Eko is purely coincidental.

JT

 

[cityboy172]

PS: to see how I modified my boiler to allow adjustment with everything assembled, check out my YouTube video. Easy to do and makes adjustments much easier.

Yeah..... I think I'm going to doing that.

 

[Eric Johnson]

Very nice mod on the primary air gates. I will definitely have to do that.

I glued plastic wire nuts to the ends of the secondary air adjustment "bolts" to make it easier to adjust them, but at some point they got exposed to flame and melted. I do have some old ceramic wire nuts that would also work, though I suppose just about anything that would give you a better grip would work just as well.

I'll have to study your other mods to see what else I might want to tackle.

One question: You said you removed the turbulators, I believe. Did you replace them with anything else, like chains?

 

[cityboy172]

I removed all the linkage and bs from mine. Put a ring on top of the turbulator. had to drill a hole to get it off the bottom ( probably wouldn't hurt any thing, just looked better in my eyes). Haven't been running a week yet, don't have much of my own opinion on all this yet.

Another one I saw on here somewhere that I plan on doing (don't know who's), was a door / bypass lock & latch. Wasn't planning on it at first, but I just watched my boiler puff and blow my bypass open, so I guess It just got put on the top priority list.

 

[BoiledOver]

Holy smokes! The bypass on this 25 takes a very firm hand, never have I seen that handle move accept by my hand. The round bypass plate is 3/8". Can't remember, is there a spring somewhere in the linkage? Sure feels like it. Maybe a stronger spring or change in geometry . I have had many detonations in the upper box and the blower flapper slams pretty good each time, but never a budge to the bypass handle.

 

[cityboy172]

Holy smokes! The bypass on this 25 takes a very firm hand, never have I seen that handle move accept by my hand. The round bypass plate is 3/8". Can't remember, is there a spring somewhere in the linkage? Sure feels like it. Maybe a stronger spring or change in geometry . I have had many detonations in the upper box and the blower flapper slams pretty good each time, but never a budge to the bypass handle.

Might not of known what happened if I didn't see it my self. I did have the upper chamber door open shortly before it happened.

Mines pretty easy to knock open. I think all my parts are here... Not positive though. It's all second hand, some of the stuff I've seen I'm not very happy about. Wouldn't surprise me. I'll snap a picture when I get home.

 

[cityboy172]

 

[cityboy172]

Found what I was looking for, in another one of jtwall's threads. I also have the cockeyed door latch he was talking about. Taking that to my welder tomorrow.

The door / bypass latch is shown in here.

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads/olan-40-door-problem.122274/#post-1641795