How to Remove Bolts for Secondary Burn Tube Cleaning

[BIGChrisNH]

The obvious answer is "remove the bolts holding them in place dummy". I've tried that on two of the tubes and the bolts just snap. Like not even close to being able to remove them. Is there a trick to this that I'm not aware of? I tried liquid wrench and letting that soak on them overnight but the test for that was the second bolt and it snapped just like the first.

Second question, how do you remove a snapped bolt? I know you can drill it out of there but I don't know how to do that without damaging the thread holes. There's also not a ton of room to maneuver tools around inside the firebox.

Anyone else run into this issue and have a fix?

 

[Hoytman]

Might help to show some pictures and tell people what stove you’re working on.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

1st observation is that the air flows out of the secondary tubes. Why do you feel the need to remove them to clean inside? They should be clean.


But if you do need to remove them, and the bolt snaps, drill them out and replace with a larger bolt. You could try heating around the bolt and hope that expands the hole, but there’s not a lot of room in there as you said and I wouldn’t want to get burnt.

 

[bholler]

We need to know what stove your working on to be much help

 

[NickW]

The best penetrant I know is JB80. It's way better than PB Blaster, but I'm not sure it will help for this application.

You might try an easy-out where you drill a hole smaller than the bolt and then use the easy out to back the snapped bolt out.

 

[BIGChrisNH]

sorry, Englander NC30. Not really worried about cleaning the tubes themselves, more so to get at the ceramic fiber boards above to replace them. Should have stated that.

 

[NickW]

I hope that's not a sign of things to come for my NC30...

 

[BIGChrisNH]

It's just that the boards are beaten up from loading the stove and running it. The stove still runs just fine I just feel like they should be replaced before they start coming apart.

 

[bholler]

Cheap stoves use cheap hardware just drill and tap for good stainless hardware and it will be fine from now on. I typically do that on the initial install of the cheaper stoves

 

[BIGChrisNH]

Cheap stoves use cheap hardware just drill and tap for good stainless hardware and it will be fine from now on. I typically do that on the initial install of the cheaper stoves

sound wisdom. Wish I thought of this when I installed it 6 or 7 years ago... but now I know for next time.