Basic Furnace Maintenance - help!

[dfobare]

Ok, I'm a complete nimrod when it comes to this stuff, so please bear with me.

I want to clean the contacts on my furnace(Lennox). A couple of years ago, we had a guy come out and give the furnace an inspection. Basically we got a clean bill of health on it. But he did notice that the contacts(they looked like short rods to me) had a little bit of residue buildup(I'd swear he said it was carbon) on them. He took a clean rag to them and that was that.

I asked the guy if that was something a doofus like myself could handle, and he said yes.

Well, last night and today the damn thing has been awfully cranky. We had a short cycle of heat last night around 10ish, and as far as I can tell, just 2 today. Filter ain't a problem - put a fresh one in last week.

I'd like to take a look at those "rods", but now I have no idea what I'm doing when I open the thing up. I should have taken pics or video of the service guy doing it.

I've Googled my fingers off but can't find specific, on-point instructions. Help!

[HayZee518]

those rods are the spark gap for the burner. on top of the burner is the high voltage transformer that feeds to those rods. there's a screw or screws that hold it down against the end of the rods. remove these screws and the transformer hinges away from the rods. Inside on the left side is a knurled nut and a six sided gland nut. Use a wrench and unscrew the gland nut and oull it away from the fitting. This is a flared fitting and mates with the burner tube. Loosen and take off the knurled nut. back out the whole assembly and remove taking care not to disturb the gap setting. The assembly has a baffle plate inside the burner compartment, a burner nozzle and the spark electrode gap.
The gap is positioned at an angle slightly in front of the nozzle. Clean these off. Unscrew the nozzle and replace with another one of the same flame number - this is the angle of which the oil is sprayed out at. Also at the rear of the assembly is the Cad cell. This is the flame detector. Its normally mounted in a rubber grommet and points forward. Remove it and clean off the glass. Then push it back into place.
Put the gap-gun assembly back into place as you removed it and button everything up. Now start your system. See what happens.