Why is this "fix" working?

[gforce22]

I have an old Bock oil-fired water heater with burner. It wasn't firing. I know it's old and if it needs to be replaced so be it. But I wanted to ask this on a place where nobody is trying to gouge me for money or has skin in the game.

I had looked into someone coming for service, and got a callback and without ever seeing it the guy automatically said it needs to be replaced. Jumping right to the most expensive

I bled the line, changed the filter. Still didn't fire. Then I removed the burner. I wiped down the nozzle gently, but the housing back in, pushed the restart button and it fired right up.

All was good for 12 hours or so. Same thing happened. Did the same "fix" and it fired up again. Every time it stops, I do the same simple thing and it fires when I push the button.

My question is why? Logically, it doesn't make sense to me. The nozzle can't be clogging that fast, can it? But that it works indicates to me that the real fix is probably fairly minor.

Any ideas?

GH

 

[GReynolds929]

Is the nozzle actually the thermocouple?

 

[Twowaxhack]

I don’t know anything about your equipment but it sounds to me like you might have a loose/bad electrical connection. Or a safety is getting reset when you do your voodoo on it and it fires.

 

[MrInfoPhilly]

if it is the thermocouple ., take a picture of the FLAME., maybe its not fully touching the flame., so I had one., that was old., dirty., and slightly moved away from the flame... So I cleaned it., and bent it to be directly into the flame... all was good