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[UPSGuy03]

hi all ! low water sensor went .. Guys at Sunshine Tree are awesome! called this morning and Paul said Derek was out dropping a load of wood nearby and would drop one off for me .. How great is that! in less than 2 hours He was here ! Couldnt be happier !

Now here comes the meat of my question .. when i take out the old one is water gonna pour out all over the place ? should i drain it down? i dont want to loose any water if i dont have to but i will if i have to ha ha.

[slimjim]

Have the new ready to go, try to cool your boiler down to about 130 degrees F and have at it, you'll get wet but it beats wasting the water and treatment, you probably won't loose a quart if you are ready!

[UPSGuy03]

cool ok good advice .. its been shut down for a few hours and its about 30 out so its pretty cool at the moment ha ha ill be back in a bit and hopefully not too wet !

[5050racing]

The guys are great,n know there stuff hard working group there,can't forget the girls at the shop also!!

[dwneast77]

How did you make out getting the old switch out?  When mine went I tried backing it out and the whole outer portion broke right off.  I left it for the last 2 years that way just bypassing the switch.  Finally, a week or so ago before I lit that furnace I decided to tackle it.  Basically I decided I'd try to heat around it with a torch.  As expected, it started to melt.  Tried pulling the guts out with a pair of pliers gripping the remaining wire ends sticking out.  Could not quite get it to happen that way and ended up losing it inside.  Used the torch to try to burn the remaining plastic out of the threads along with wire wheels and a Dremel.  Then still could not get the new one to thread in.  Ended up using a brass plug of the same size and after some work managed to get it to start threading in.  Had to work it back and forth many times trying to get it a little further each time as it was extremely tight.  Finally got it to where I thought it was far enough.  I know it was not cross threaded but it was stripping a little bit of the threads off the plug as I screwed it in.  I kept cleaning out the shards.  Once done with that the new switch screwed right in and all is good.  Not sure screwing plastic into steel is the best choice especially where such heat is involved.  Plastic breaks down.  Thread seal gets hardened.  What would seem to be an easy task turned into over 2 hours.  A little frustrating.  Wondered for a while if I should have left well enough alone.

Anyone else have any fun adventures with this?

[UPSGuy03]

well it took all of about 15 minutes to change out it was pretty easy .. the hardest part was getting a wrench on it in that tight space ! so the float part didnt just get stuck its missing alltogether ! i took the old one out and it was cracked lengthwise down the whole middle of it and the float is GONE. so my shoes are in the garage drying out and its all back up and running again ...whew !

[mlappin]

If you don't have the proper size pipe tap, take your brass plug and a hacksaw, clamp the plug in a vise then cut a few relief grooves ninety degrees to the threads. If possible cut your slot at a angle so the leading edge of the slot makes the threads "sharp" as you screw it in. I do this with bolts to clean rusty holes out, use a tap on rusty holes and might as well throw the tap away when your done.

[dwneast77]

Good advice.    Thanks!! 

Well, good advice for next time anyway.   

[slimjim]

Great advice Marty, I've used that trick myself lot's of times, you are spot on with the taps being junk after using them on rusty threads!

[Roger2561]

When I thought my low water sensor was bad on my CB E-Classic 1400 I asked my dealer if I had to drain some of the water to prevent from being soaked when water ran out.  He said to take the cap off the fill tube on the top, duct tape a shop vac to it, turn on the shop vac.  You will not draw out water but it will cause static pressure to lessen the amount of water loss when the sensor is removed.  Now, I haven't had to change mine out yet so I have no first hand knowledge if it works but when the day comes that I have to change it out I'll try the shop vac with duct tape trick to see if it works.  Roger

[mlappin]

Never thought about using a shop vac Roger, cute trick.

Another thing you could do, when the stove is at temp tape over the vent/fill spout then let it cool off. When it cools it will build a vacuum as water will contract when it cools. I've changed block heaters in some mighty big diesels using that trick. If you can't warm it up or needs done now, take one of those siphon blow guns, pull the overflow hose from the radiator fill neck and attach the siphon hose to that to built a vacuum.

[5050racing]

Awesome ideas just wish we didn't have theses problems so soon but nice to share these great ways to make it simple!!!