Worcester Heatslave 20/25 burner cover?

[henteaser]

Recently had a new oil tank installed for my Worcester oil burner.

The new tank is now at ground level so a deaerator device (Tigerloop brand) has been added, and with a new return line fitted to the original Danfos oil pump.

To get access to the pump for this new return line, they’ve cut a approx. 2 inch hole in the side of the metal burner cover.

Since this new setup, the burner has sounded very “airy” and has often been much louder, making a variety of odd noises!

6 weeks later and the burner locked out. I now suspect the bearings in the burner motor are shot. The fan turns, but is stiff, and certainly doesn’t spin freely. Having taken the burner off and give them a manual spin, refitted, it fires.

Are my thoughts on the burner cover required to create a seal correct? Would the cover having a massive hole in it (or not on at all) put extra strain on the pump/motor bearings? Any other side effects? eg Oil:Air Mixture?

Or is more likely just a complete coincidence? (25year old boiler)

 

[Burnerman]

The burner is completely enclosed when an outside balanced flue is used....so that the combustion air comes from outside, not the room itself.
Can you identify the flue type please? If it's a balanced one the cover should have been left alone.
Any cutting of the casing will increase the noise but not theoretically interfere with the air supply but there won't be any effect on pump life or motor bearings.
Bearings are simple to replace if you want with the motor on the bench.....6202zz are the usual ones.
John

 

[ChrisJP]

Or if you don't want to mess about replacing motor bearings, complete motors are readily available and surprisingly cheap online (typically £60 to £80)

 

[henteaser]

The burner is completely enclosed when an outside balanced flue is used....so that the combustion air comes from outside, not the room itself.
Can you identify the flue type please? If it's a balanced one the cover should have been left alone.
Any cutting of the casing will increase the noise but not theoretically interfere with the air supply but there won't be any effect on pump life or motor bearings.
Bearings are simple to replace if you want with the motor on the bench.....6202zz are the usual ones.
John

It appears to be a “room sealed” type

 

[Burnerman]

If it’s a room sealed type, the burner cover should be intact.
The boiler will still work perfectly well drawing air from the room though. You could maybe seal the hole with a large rubber grommet, suitably modified!
John

 

[henteaser]

If it’s a room sealed type, the burner cover should be intact.
The boiler will still work perfectly well drawing air from the room though. You could maybe seal the hole with a large rubber grommet, suitably modified!
John

Thanks so much for the info!
Managed to find a complete burner/pump unit from the same model so hopefully this will fix the (now squealing!) boiler.
Purely out of curiosity: what would be the negative affects of no/leaky burner cover be on a room sealed system?

 

[Exedon]

Not room sealed? By design a room sealed appliance should have no possibility of leaking combustion products into property.
Air supply is from outside so no chance of problems there.
Even tho you have a replacement burner from same model boiler it will still need re commissioning to run correctly and probably need converting to 2 pipe oil feed.