Blaze King KEJ-1101: Can anyone help me ID or rule out a loose part?

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Monosperma

Member
Jun 4, 2011
109
Colorado/NewMexico
Greetings! I just purchased one of the earliest cat stoves that is STILL certified by the EPA, a Blaze King KEJ-1101. Man, is that sucker heavy at 436 lbs or so, but it should be able to kick out a ton of BTU's and sustain them for a long, long time. I am psyched to place this one into a remote and drafty old ranch house and quit buying so much propane! Finish is good, brick lining is good, the blower works, the ceramic catalytic combustor is not cracked or crumbling or fire-damaged, though it does appear somewhat dirty. I realize I'll have to, for sure, re-seal the doors and the bypass and the combustor and get a new handle.

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My plan is to gently clean the combustor with a pipecleaner and a soft paintbrush, re-install it with a new seal, and give it a try, seeing if it will light off and self-clean the rest of the way. If that fails, I'll have to buy a new combustor for more than what I paid for the stove. Here is what the combustor looks like now:

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But my real head-scratcher is these 2 parts that came with the stove, and I am questioning whether they actually are parts to this stove. They appear to have been exposed to some heat in one stove or another. But I can't see where they would go. The angles did not really match up with any angles visible from the outside. I have looked inside my stove and on all sides and cannot see where they would go. Unfortunately, I have not yet had the chance to look UNDER the stove, so perhaps they go there. Or perhaps they are just unrelated extra parts. They are sheet metal and just do not look beefy and over-built enough to be part of this rig. But, for all I know, they are crucial to correct operation and must be re-installed in the correct location.

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Bonus points: There is a welded, tubed, hole on the outside of the stove, on the left side, angling upwards, that does not appear to go all the way through to the combustion chamber, as I cannot see daylight through it. Nor can I reach the end of it with my finger. Anyone know what this hole is or does?

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Congrats on the stove and welcome to the forums. Any chance it is part of the cat enclosure or maybe a flame shield?
 
SolarAndWood said:
Congrats on the stove and welcome to the forums. Any chance it is part of the cat enclosure or maybe a flame shield?

Maybe a flame shield... yep, that's why I'm not discarding the parts just because I don't yet see where they might go.

These 2 photos are taken by laying the camera on the floor of the firebox, pointing straight up. The combustor drops from above into an oval-shaped holder which it cannot fall through. There is a flame shield and a secondary air tube that bolt on beneath the cat. These spare parts do not really fit that space. What else on this stove might require heat shielding?

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Contact Blaze King tech support. They should recognize the parts if they are original.
 
BK tech support is pretty good. They should be able to help a lot. Being that this is an older model, I'm not terribly familiar with it.

The first picture looks like a flame shield for the cat, but I don't know for sure.
 
pic 3 is a shield that side down behind the by-pass door. pic 4 there are 2 of the sheilds that go next to the heat tubes and help to hold the cat in place.
 
Better late than never: I,m actually posting a question; but I do know that the 3 "shields" you have, surround the bypass door = Accessible through the stove stack top hole, they all stand vertically. The rectangular one goes between the bypass door and stove front. The 2 "angled" plates go either side, forming a "box" around the internal bypass door. They direct catalytic combustor smoke with bypass door closed..."keeping the heat in" so to speak.
My question is: are the welded-on, loading door latches "adjustable", and if so...how? We've had our King since 1984 and would have no other.
Thanks - Mike
 
Mike, can you start a new thread with your question? This 2011 thread should be closed and concluded.
 
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