Espar heater starting to fail

So my espar heater is having a hard time starting. When I turn it on, it starts blowing cold air, goes through the click-click-click phase, and then shuts down and tries again. Eventually, after three or five tries, fires up into jet engine mode and runs fine.

Any ideas? Maybe the start up sparker is going bad? I don't know anything about these things tbh.

I could maybe leave it alone and hope it makes it through the winter as is, but I'd like to at least pick up the spare parts in case it totally craps out. I like this heater, hate to keep the truck running just for heat on a 30 degree night.

 

Thanks, I will look into it. The tapping is probably not an every night in the cold type of solution though, but changing the fuel pump is a good idea if it is indeed failing.

 

Where does one even buy kerosene outside of the 19th century? And if I do manage to acquire this obsolete liquid, do I just pull the fuel line from the tank and stick it into the kerosene and just start it up as normal?

 

Do I put a new fuel filter afterwards?

 

Hmm, thanks. Sounds like a good easiest first step to try, before going to the "pulling apart the heater with special tools" and "hitting the pump with hammers" stages.