Defiant Encore rebuild assistance needed

[postandbeam]

I recently came across this site, and have been voraciously reading posts since. I have a 1993 Defiant Encore stove that I purchased used a little over a year ago. Its a great looking stove, and worked well last winter. Its secondary heat to oil, but I'd like to utilize it more this winter. I have not done any refinishing yet to it, but I know its a bit drafty, and won't hold an overnight burn. Please excuse my homespun terms for some internal parts, I'm still new to lots of this lingo. Inside my stove, there is a cover, with ears on both ends of it, and it was warped and wouldn't fit into its place. I purchased a new one, and the receptacles where the ears fit have warped inward, and won't accept the ears from this cover. I'm trying to establish how far I'll need to go with the rebuild at this point? I also have not checked the cat as well, and I need to do that. Thanks.

 

[kwburn]

are you talking about the hood that covers the inlet to the catalytic converter area where the redirected smoke goes up and in?
if so, i have had a difficult time replacing mine after removal. nothing seemed to work and i gave up several times then all of a sudden i just did something right and it connected and hung properly.
yours may be more warped however, not sure.

great stove though when running on all cylinders. make sure you replace ALL the gaskets to make it run properly including the ash door, main doors, exhaust redirect flap (forget the name) and the top loading door. i could never fully control my burn temps until i replaced each and every one of these gaskets. the ash door especially is tricky and must be perfectly airtight or else you'll get a hot burn on one side of the stove closest to the air leak. once fully sealed it maintains a perfect temp with the thermostat regardless of how much wood is loaded.

i replaced my catalytic converter with one from stovecombustors.com and it worked great.

good luck!

 

[postandbeam]

I think that it is the cover that goes over the catalytic, which admittedly I've been a bit nervous about looking at. But the catalytic is on my list of to-do items for rebuilding, and possibly replacement. Any idea how much the replacement catalytic cost was? My old catalytic cover was rather warped, but I'm afraid the back wall with the insets that the ears from this cover go into is warped as well. You make a very good point about the need to do the gaskets, I haven't done mine yet, and I'm assuming this is a large part of the reason I can't prolong my burn time on a full load of wood. Is there a complete gasket kit for this stove available?

 

[kwburn]

yeah, you can get the full gasket kit for the Defiant Encore. should be available at just about any VC dealer for $25-40. normally i'll save a buck by buying bulk gasket by the foot but for VC's its just easier and usually cheaper to just get the kit. this way everything is the exact size you need and the correct type.

i just checked and it looks like stovecombustors.com is down. maybe they went out of business? i think the regular price was $140 and they had a sale going and mine was $100-120. standard price most places is $180-200 like at Condar.com. last year when i replaced mine i was actually able to sell my old one (which seemed fine, i just bought the stove and wanted to replace it) on ebay for like $60 i think.

i love the Defiant Encore though. i'd probably trade my Intrepid for one for the bigger window and run two of them given the opportunity.

 

[postandbeam]

So I have finally gone through my Encore a bit more, and it looks like the upper fireback is warped. I cannot get the flue flap that covers the inlet to the cat in place, and the bottom of the upper fireback appears to be low, almost warped at the base. Can I purchase the upper fireback seperately, or do I need to buy the entire fireback kit?