Riello Burner Delay

My Lika has a Riello 40 Burner with a 12 second delay before firing.
Steep or long hills the 12 sec. delay means boiler pressure falls below 100 psi.  

Does anyone know if this can be reduced or done away with?

That's a common problem with that type of burner. I had the same thing. The fix I did is to replace it with a 12 v dc wayne burner. This fixed a lot of problem and removed items that were needed. The 12 v burner has no purge time and doesn't use a cad eye.

This is annoying as I know but the easiest way to over come it is to drive to the pressure gauge. Going up hill keep the pressure at 175 psi. If it goes up you can give it more throttle and if it goes down ease off a bit. The speed will reduce but you will keep going. I have never seen my engine give up.

The tip Dean gave me was to fit an overide switch to bypass the pressure switch so that when you see a hill coming you can forestall the delay. But remember to turn it off again!

Peter.

I have fitted a over ride switch within easy reach.
This seems to be the least costly answer, although the switch is a push and hold in type to avoid over cooking.
I will keep 1 eye on the road & 1 eye on the water level and the other eye on the pressure gauge.

The over ride switch will work. Its the purge time thats the problem. The burner was made for home use so the purge time was no problem. in road use where steam is being used at a variable rate it doesn't work well. The burner is best set to cut out at a few pounds below safety pop off. My safety is set to pop at 250 psi and burner is set to cut off at 245 psi. When under load the burner will run all the time going up a hill so purge time doesn't affect it. when you are on a level road and see a hill that's when its a problem. The early steam car guys knew this and adjusted there driving to overcome this. We lost this knowledge when the steam car when away and we all started to drive explosion engines. just give it more gas and go up the hill.