ROAD TRIP

Saw an ad on Craigs list yesterday that read "Very Small Pellet stove"

Nothing more.

Dropped the dude an email and asked for a piccy or two and a price.

Guy sends me a piccy of a Whitfield Prodigy 2

Fairly late production too (For the model)

Heading out here in a bit to go take a peek, and hopefully it will be a good score.

If all works out it might be a profitable sight seeing tour.

About 65 miles one way.

Will get pics and post later if it all works out.

 

Good luck Snowy. Keep us posted.

 

BINGO.

Great scenic drive up to SW Washington.

The folks were very nice/friendly.

We got there about 5:30 pm with storm clouds gathering fast.
The gal ( my mistake, never spoke, was text only) who was selling the stove met us and we went into the shed, and sitting right there in a scattering of dust, hay and ton of other items is this little Prodigy 2.

Pretty dirty with more rust than I am used to seeing on stoves, butttttttttttttttt, the tin is straight and the stove is nearly complete.

Two little metal covers are missing under the lid that cover the exhaust housing and the exhaust motor, and had been haphazardly replaced by some galvanized sheeting that was SORT of cut to fit.

No worries.
I may have a line on these already, if not I can build new ones (Rather have factory parts)

Sadly, all 3 windows in the cast door are broken. (Looks like this was done during storage)

Any way.

We are looking at the little beast and I'm probably not displaying lotsa smiles as I paw over the thing.

The gal immediately dropped the price to $150 and I had not spoken a word.

Well this definitely got the "Purchasing juices" flowing.

Sort of like a scene from an "American Pickers" episode when they uncover some goodies.

Next step was to get the little fellow outside in the good daylight to look it over more closely.

I grabbed some tools and got the door pins out and took the cast iron door off to lighten the load by at least 40 pounds.

The gal had a dolly that made the trip outside a snap.

Next I removed the rear cover to inspect things.

The gal asks what I am doing ????

"I am making sure that I don't steal any of your mice"

Surprisingly there was absolutely no signs of any critters having invaded the mechanical cabinet.


So I offer a hand shake "Just like the Pickers do" and we wrangle the little beast over to the back of the Burb.

Well now, my back is still not the best and there is no way we are going to muscle this thing up into the rig without some help.

The gals hubby was on his way as was her son (never did see the kid)

Its starting to rain when her hubby finally gets there.

He changes clothes and we toss the beast in the rig (I'm soaked by this time)

Had a good drive back out here to the ranch and arrived just about dark (8:30 pm)

And a great time was had by all I THINK

I will get some pix today if the weather will cooperate.

A bit of surface rust and a nasty coat of FLAT BLACK paint to be removed, but all in all a great find.

Best part is the outer sheet metal is not dented up.

I'm thinking a lovely coat of the Slate Gray will really look nice on this critter.

Movin on

 

Well it's all out in the open now.

Got the beast out and on the slab and laid the tools to it.

OMG it's a train wreck inside.

Where do I start ????

The wiring was a mess and plugged in all screwy.

The draft fan would cycle on and off with the auger motor
The draft fan sounded like a rock crusher and vibrated so bad it really seemed as though the thing was gonna fly apart.

Some moron had made their own motor bracket for the exhaust fan and did not include the cooling fan. Then welded the entire abortion to the exhaust fan box.

Its pretty well torn down to the bones now to clean the rust off and get it ready to paint.

Heat tubes and heat chamber are in good shape.
Room air fan is filthy and needed cleaning
Auger was stuck tight with old swollen pellets
Needs auger bushings

Needs room air fan gasket.

Complete removal of the paint and metal cleaned then a repaint in and out.

Going to use some rust mort on the inside of the cabinet, then paint it.

The door glass panels are all cracked (done when stored it looks like)

Room air fan does not slow down as it should on the lower heat settings.

Fire back is toast.

Outer sheet metal is straight and will clean up.

Gonna take some serious elbow grease and a few parts.

Not sure if the controller is salvageable.

Gonna just work though it from the ground up and bring it back to top condition.
With the cost of new stoves it should fetch a good price when all done.

Here are a batch of pix

Most are self explanitory

 

More pix

 

And still more

Enjoy the trip through this poor little wretch.

It is salvageable, but it's gonna take some love.

 

Can't wait to see this one when its all done. Good luck with it Snowy

 

This one is going to test my "Mettle" a bit.

The last one was pretty much all about a good cleaning and a few mechanical modifications to repair some of the areas that bolts thread in.

This sucker, other than the fact that the tin is straight is a 5 alarm train wreck.

In order to come out on this unit it's got to look like new.

That terrible abortion that some idiot scabbed in for an exhaust fan motor bracket was just awful.

Luckily the fan box was not ruined, and is in otherwise very good shape.

I want to treat every inch of accessible sheet metal with Rust Mort to turn it to a black oxide and make it look top notch.

Been snooping about for door glass, and the stuff is pricey. $$$$$

Cost more than I paid for the stove to buy the glass.

Going to check with the local glass shop and see if they can do it.

Still worried about the controller though.

Until I get the sheet metal clean and thing back together with a quiet draft fan it's a waste of time messing with it.

I might swap the board into my Spare P2 and see what shakes, as that stove works sweet.

That would eliminate the stove as the cause.

The room air blower runs full speed no matter what heat setting it's on.

The fan has a hall effect sensor that feeds a signal to the board to adjust the speed accordingly.

The controller may be fine, maybe the fan ????

I can't afford to build a custom controller and than sell it, plus my controls are a bit industrial looking for most folks taste

 

We know you won't give up on a challenge like this!

 

I have my backup units carefully squirreled away and all ready.

This one is a project to sell, and hopefully recover the cost of the two backups.

At the prices of new stoves I hope this little critter can return a good chunk of coin.

Just gotta be careful about keeping the refurb cost low.

I put a lot of little extras in the P2 I finished for a spare.

With the location requirements of the vents and the amount of fooling about to get units to burn the shells it is far better to have exact replacements available in the wings.

Would love to try a new Harman, but the tariff on those is beyond what I can justify to heat my shack.

The learning curve is a long convoluted pathway that I really don't want to have to redo in the middle of winter.

LOTSA ELBOW GREASE (And fun too)

 

Well now.

With a ton of nasty rusty grunge cleaned off the stoves sheet metal things are looking up nicely.

My big worries were the CONTROL BOARD and the DOOR GLASS

The control board seemed to have issues as the room air blower did not change speed from 1 thru 5 heat setting.

A removal of the face plate and back cover along with a good spray down with electronic cleaner revealed little of anything.

I noticed that the trim pot on the fan speed was cranked all the way CW which over rides the heat selector switch settings.

I finished cleaning things and reassembled the controller with the covers.

I plugged it into my other known good stove and gave things a go.

A quick tweak on the trim pot and everything is just as it should be.


Called our local glass shop and they can supply the special glass pieces for the door.

They cut them to order right there.

Having these two large hurdles out of the way really makes things start to look like the little beast may be ready for a new in a short time.

Life is good.

 

Hard at it today.
Got all the external sheet metal cleaned and looking good.

Tossed a coat of primer on all the outer metal (inside and out, as the factory always left the stuff bare inside)

Prime coat looks good, so the color coat will likely be sweet.

I was worried about the base, as you can see the rust in the earlier pix.

All the sheet metal was pretty grungy, with loads of surface rust and a nasty flat black paint job.

Going to take it back to the factory "Charcoal" color, as this will go with many interiors.

Thought about the Golden Fire brown.
Very pretty, but limited as to what it looks good with.
The P2 was offered in the GF Brown and Charcoal when new.

Next it will be to prime and make the chassis look good again.

It's close now, just a tad more cleaning and then time for some paint on the interior of the cabinet area.

Normally this is bare steel, but this little guy is going to get a coat of light gray ????? to spruce it up nicely.

Then we start stuffing the beast back together.

 

World of difference already!

 

Wow. Looking good snowy

 

Thanks.

If the weather holds today I want to toss some "Stove Bright" enamel on the stuff and see how it looks.

I have some welding to do on the chassis, as there are several bolt holes that are stripped out.

The factory used self tapping screws to hold the side panels closed at the front frame area, and these get stripped out easily.

Only good fix is to weld up the holes and ten re-drill and tap them.

Can't go oversize as there is no room.

Got to add some metal to the inside flanges of the heat tube chamber where the exhaust casting bolts on as well (Did this on my spare P2)

Once these things are done the chassis can be painted.

Then it will be time to bolt it all back together.

 

More serious elbow grease today.

Weather going down the drain by tonight so decided to lay on some paint and get some other work finished.

Got all the major sheet metal shot with the Stove Bright charcoal metalic.

Dug out the left over all metal fire back from the other P2 and got it mounted in the fire box.

Next came the cast iron door and the broken glass.

All I can say about getting the glass retention clips out was

OH MY GAWD IT GOT REAL UGLY.

Not one screw would budge, not one.

Ended up using the die grinder and cutting the heads off of the screws and grinding them down flush with the casting.

Will drill them out and tap new threads.

Got the door all cleaned up nice and a fresh coat of paint on it.

The broken glass is sad, as it did not have to happen.

The door glass had been hit fairly hard, as the clips on the inside were even bent.

Clips are usable and all straight now.
Will wire brush them up prior to reuse.

Here are the days piccy's

Still no quote on the glass, just need the time to go get that taken care of.

 

Stove will be better than new
Great work you're doing Snowy

 

Thanks for the ++++++

Not sure if it will be better than new, but it will work well and should make somebody a fine "Widdle" stove.

It is turning out far and away better than I had suspected when I drug it home a week ago or so.

It is going to look nice and nice looks makes used stoves sell much better.

Hopefully within a couple weeks I can be building a fire in the little beast.

Trying to keep a evil eye on restoration costs


Documenting everything right down to the expendables like sand paper and wire brushes (End type used in the drill)

Screws, paint, primer and anything that goes into it.


Looks like the big $$$$ will be the new Glass for the door.