Here is one for gard, retento, Paul  or anyody I guess that knows about propane.

We used our new RVQ grille this weekend on our Sundowner and it worked but SLOW!  I hooked up the lp hose from the grille to the trailer hook up, turned the gas on then turned the valve on the grille to the light poss., fired it up and tried to turn the valve to a higher setting and made no difference in the flame, turned the valve down to low or med and the flame shut off.

What do I need to do?

Regulator sticking.... Smack it with a hammer and or replace....

In addition to the regulator, you might want to visually inspect the burner orifice for any kind of blockage. Does your grill have one or more burners? If there are more than one, and they are both produce a slow flame, your problem probably involves a gas feed situation. (Regulator, gas hose assy) If just one burner is low, then it probably would be an orifice or burner valve problem. If you have two burners and two valves, it is easier to trouble shoot by elimination.

Whenever you have the gas supply hose disconnected from the tank, it's a good idea to put a sandwich baggie over the end, and hold it in place with a rubber band. The ingestion of the smallest foreign particles, can partially plug an orifice and produce a poor flame by restricting the gas flow. After it is again disconnected, you can try to back flush the hose by blowing air into the orifice end. Pressurizing the gas supply end may only make matters worse.

Gard 

If it was sealed in a plastic box. I doubt that you will have any foriegn matter in the line. It's easy to find out. Your regulator has packings, that from lack of use in storage, may be now hard and brittle. The gas valve has machining oil residue on the turned brass fittings. It may also be hardened, and blocking the gas flow. You can blow air through the valve to establish an air flow. You can use acetone or a carb cleaner to clean the valve. Don't do this with the regulator, as you can damage the diaphram.

Gard

A propane gas regulator works the same way most simple regulators operate. A diaphragm that has a pressure on one side pushes against a spring. A common shaft in the middle usually has a tapered needle valve on the end. Regardless of the tank's pressure, you should always get ~11" of Mercury delivered. The operation of this regulator is similar to the air regulator on your air compressor, only it is not adjustable.

If it is fixed, it means the internal shaft is frozen, it is not regulating, and is only letting out a fixed lower amount of gas than you need. Most inexpensive regulators are sealed and have no serviceable parts. As Paul says, discard the bad one and purchase a new one if that's your problem.

We purchased a new two stage regulator a couple of months ago and it was less than $20. That was used for a LQ service. A single stage typically used on grills is aprox ~$13.

Kelley, I just reread your original posting. If I'm not mistaken, you said that your propane source originated from your LQ's tanks and system? If it does, and the grill is not a stand alone system, a quick check will determine if your regulator is bad.

Do the rest of your LQ gas appliances work properly? If they do, your regulator is not at fault. Does the hose to the grill have its own shut off valve, that is used when the grill is disconnected? If it does, it could be at fault because of little or no usage. Most of these valves are brass and can be disassembled and cleaned.

Again I would check the orifice, the grill's temp control valve and the hose itself. That's basically all that is left in the system.

Gard

Do the rest of your LQ gas appliances work properly? If they do, your regulator is not at fault. Does the hose to the grill have its own shut off valve, that is used when the grill is disconnected? If it does, it could be at fault because of little or no usage. Most of these valves are brass and can be disassembled and cleaned.

Again I would check the orifice, the grill's temp control valve and the hose itself. That's basically all that is left in the system.

Gard

HTB ... Does the grill have it's own regulator?  or is the burner designed to operate from tank pressure like a turkey fryer?

Your description seems to indicate a low flow/pressure condition to the control valve and burner.

If your grill is like the RVQ II as posted by  BlazingCreekBar I would look at two areas.

your regulator on the trailer.  Is it an integral two stage regulator?  If so, it is putting out 10 WC (water column) of pressure to the appliances.  The RVQ  II grill is looking for 10 PSI (pounds per square inch) because it has its own second stage regulator.

The other area is a leak.  Recent RV's have a safety feature is called a “flow-limiting-device.” Its purpose is to restrict the flow of escaping gas if there is an excessive leak in the RV propane system. This second “flow-limiting-device” feature and how it works forms the core of the secret! Almost every time the cylinder valve is opened, a small ball in the center of the brass nipple (inside the green nut) is pushed forward into a brass seat. This seat doesn’t totally shut off the gas. By design, it allows a small amount of gas (by-pass flow) to go into the RV propane system. If everything in the propane system is closed and in the off position and there are no leaks, the by-pass flow builds up a back pressure. This equalizes the pressure in the ball back of the seat and allows unrestricted flow through the system. All this happens in about five seconds and the user doesn’t know it’s happening, appliances light, furnaces and water heaters run as normal.

Now lets look at the same system but with the oven control left in the pilot on position. Again the cylinder valve is opened, the ball is pushed into the seat, the by-pass flow goes through the system but this time it can’t equalize because the flow continues out through the open oven pilot. The user goes inside and starts cooking dinner. Two burners on the range top are lit and everything seems okay until the furnace comes on. At that point, the flames on the range top are drawn down and the furnace won’t ignite, everything seems starved out. The reason? We don’t have full-unrestricted cylinder flow to run our system, we only have the small by-pass flow which is far too small to feed the appliances trying to operate.

A related issue. Does the trailer propane regulator have enough BTU rating to operate the RVQ grill? and everything else at the same time?  Look for and tally up the various BTU / hr ratings

Close to that, but mine is a little smaller and does not have the regulator on the hose like that one.  Mine has a hose that hooks to the bottom of the trailer with a quick connect and the hose is hook to the valve on the grille.

This trailer was ordered new with the RVQ grille package from Sundowner.  I had no trouble with any of the other items in the trailer that works off of propane.  I tried the stove top, furnace and fridge all at the same time tonight and all worked well.

The silver part is the Fixed Regulator...

Hey there... The grills have their own regulator built in so you are working off of two regulators. The only way to get it to work with a bigger flame is to put it on a bottle by it's self with no regulator. If you do this be careful because of the flame and heat that is attached to your trailer, do not leave it unattended because of the fire risk. We had a friend that caught the side of the trailer on fire along with the awning....

Good Luck

I had one on a previous trailer.  I had the same problem.  I gave up and used an external grill.  It was just too slow to use the RVQ.  It just didn't produce enough heat to be effective.

Kelley

When you were doing your checks, what kind of gas flow were you getting through your black pipe, shut off valve and quick disconnect? It shouldn't be difficult to disconnect the flex line as it affixes to the grill. Turn the system regulator on with the flex line open, and you can tell by the sound, if you have a good flow or not. A good flow would eliminate all the source items as being too restrictive. It would also indicate the problem as being in the grill itself.

Gard

Be careful messing with that L.P.... Never check for leaks using a lit, kitchen match...!!

Time to go....

Is the knob stripped on the shaft? Can you remove the knob and turn the shaft with some vice grips? Once you have the shaft moving, you can apply some lube until it frees up completely. The valves are available through the Internet by their manufacturers instead of buying through SD.

Gard

Do they have a built in regulator or restricter? Similar to a propane/natural gas restricter on a gas oven? The LQ system's two stage regulator will provide enough flow for the grill. With no additional external regulator showing on the grill, the only other restriction could be an additional orifice built into the burner control valve. If that's the case, it could be drilled out or replaced with a common gas grill valve assy.

Gard