It's out!

Jan and I started on the removal of the failed Aqua-Hot first thing in the morning.  First step was draining the 16+ gallons of antifreeze from the unit.  It is easy to do by connecting a garden hose to the drain on the tank and running it into the sewer receptacle at our site.  Before you get alarmed by that statement remember the antifreeze is potable.

The green hose is the drain

After we got the antifreeze out we needed to tackle the engine preheat loop and the fuel lines.  So Jan and I got right in there with my tube cutter, Jan was holding the barb connector to jam in each end of the hose so we could loop it back on itself, and as we were being soaked by the spewing antifreeze it dawned on me, DUH, that I never applied the pinch pliers to the lines!  Just goes to show I am not used to doing this kind of job and maybe am losing it a bit too:-)  Funny how the spewing antifreeze stopped the moment I applied the pliers.  Then on to the fuel lines, and yes I remembered the pinch pliers this time.

That's the fuel line with the pliers attached
and you can see where we cut the engine preheat loop,
the black and the red hose ends

That left the 6 heating loop connections, 3 inlets and 3 outlets, at first we tried to contain the antifreeze in them, but realized when we were fabricating the connections to the new unit we would need these hoses to be essentially dry, so off they came, one at a time, and we plugged them all for good measure.

The heating loop connections

I removed the control box, circuit board, cut off the line from the expansion tank to the top of the unit, and then it was time to tackle the exhaust.  This was a bit unknown.  We were hoping for the best, and praying the pipe wouldn't be rusted in place or impossible to remove.  Now Jan, the diesel mechanic took this job on herself, and I can't tell you how thankful and proud I am of her for jumping in and doing these kind of jobs.  For some weird reason I cannot crawl under on my back and work over my head, it makes me instantly nauseous, can't explain it, and NO it is not just an excuse to have Jan do it.  Anyway the moment of truth, under she went, and removed the u-bolts and one hanger enough that we could slide the exhaust pipe off the end of the elbow fitting that goes into the Aqua-Hot.

Exhaust pipe off the Aqua-Hot and lying on the ground

Then she had to remove a heat shield that Monaco had mounted around the pipe, and finally she took a deep breath to attack the black iron pipe elbow........and it was almost finger tight.  Yippee, it popped right off!

The exhaust elbow

That left one remaining wire, the 120 volt AC connection to the electric element, and we could not reach it because of where we had mounted our "auxiliary" hot water heater.  Well on further inspection it was revealed that I would have to reinstall a new wire to the new unit anyway so snip, snip it was cut.  So all we needed to do now is yank it out.  So we fashioned a little stand to support it as it came out.

Our high tech stand

So we each took a hold and........yanked and......it didn't budge a millimeter!  What!?!  Turned out there were 2 hold down brackets on the back side of the unit.  Amazingly after removing those it slid right out.

OUT!

Which left a big mess, but after it was cleaned up we were getting closer to putting the new one in.

Before

After

Actually there is quite a bit more to do before sticking the new one in.  We were able to get all the fittings, finally, that I believe we need, but on further study of the installation manual, I notice it calls for at least 1 3/4" exhaust pipe on the new one, old exhaust is 1 1/2".  I had planned to just plug in the new to the old, but after confirmation with the manufacturer it was apparent I needed to find a new exhaust pipe.  I had a fortuitous find when I went to NAPA to get the last of the fittings, there was an old time garage right next door.  We removed the old exhaust pipe from the coach, loaded it the truck, and in about 30 minutes, Brad made me a new exhaust pipe mirroring the old one, expanded the end so it would slip on the new elbow and even made it so we could reuse our chrome exhaust tip!  All in 2" pipe.  

I took a few more minutes tearing off all the "good" stuff from the old unit, pumps, burner, fittings, circuit board, etc for resale.  And even sold one circulating pump to my friend, Jack, who is holding it for insurance to prevent his own pumps from failing:-)

The burner and combustion chamber

So now I need to run that new 120 volt AC wire, attach a few fittings to the new unit, reassess the hose attachments to the new unit, and maybe slip it in....

So in another day or so, who knows, maybe for Christmas we will have our new Aqua-Hot up and running.