Hello all,
I bought a couple of Tom McCloud's plunger kits. I replaced 2 manifold's worth and realized I should have ordered 3 kits. At the same time though the parts I pulled out were in excellent condition so I wasn't too worried. Still I was having leveling system problems and it occurred to me it could be bad solenoids. I checked and found 3 bad. 2 were on manifolds I already got apart and 1 was on the tag manifold that I didn't touch yet...
So... The nuts holding the solenoid to the valve stem were not exactly easy to get off in every case. In several instances they spun the stem out of the body. At that point I had to hold it in my hand and use an impact gun on it to free it up. All was well in the end until today.
Today I decided to replace one of the bad tag solenoids (just the coil part here) and of course, the nut stuck and the valve stem came out. NO amount of impacting was getting this nut off. In fact it wore out the metal holder "C" shaped holder's retainer and the coil started to break apart. So I decided to dremel the C bracket off and dremel off the coil as well. A large mess later I am still left with a nut that absolutely won't spin. Somehow during the process I messed up the threads that go into the valve body. But not too badly so I can still straighten them with a razor blade. I hold the stem with a vice grips and try to get the nut off... nope, nope and more nope. I end up having to cut the nut off. It's finally off and I wonder if I damaged the stem. So I try to put the plunger back in and it immediately gets stuck...... crap. Not only have I wasted my day but I've also ruined the valve.
The moral of the story is if you are going to take on plunger replacement, seriously consider having a spare valve on hand. Now I have to wait who knows how long and hope the coach is okay up on stands.
I had several like that with pretty much the same experience as yours. I did not give up easily. I ended up buying new solenoids for those.
jor
Mark D
I have the 6 solenoids that were on my front 6 pack. They need the plunger kit to be made operable. I even cleaned out the rust and painted the coil cans and installed a new washer. I had to buy a new 6 pack from FT parts ($781 shipped direct from HWH) as the manifold was in bad shape. When you get a new 6 pack the coils are encased in plastic, no cans to rust. The coils have 3 different lengths of wire for the connection. If you are interested PM me.
Edit: You may have the newer type of coils. I don't know if the other parts (plunger, stem, spring, brass body) are the same, but they look the same on the outside.
I just put in a quote request from HWH which are reputedly $85 each. I could be persuaded to try yours but it depends how much you want to sell them for and how many you'd like to sell. Ideally I'd want at least 2 but probably no more than 3.
Jerry,
You can use a wire wheel brush on your bench grinder to clean up those brass valve bodies. Makes 'em look better than new!
They look better than new!
P