Whitfield WP4 Quest ........ auger agony

[gearcruncher]

Hey guys ..........new to the site and yes I have a problem . A strange one mind you .
Myself and the wife were out of town and we left the young daughter home who forgot all about the stove running .
I am not sure how long she left the stove unattended but judging by the black residue surrounding the fire brick , she was gone for
one heck of a long time . She did make the attempt to clean the ash tray and restart the stove but by now , the stove was done .
The stove worked great before this incident occured . According to my daughter ,nothing happened at all and she was home
watching the stove hehehehehe lol
Followed all the instructions I could find at this site as well as a few others for troubleshooting the auger system.
Even watched video that this site has a link for .
Purchased a brand new clockwise auger motor Part number PV003 . Note that the rotation had to be reversed when I called the supplier .Apparently Whitfield are one of the only pellet stove manufacturers to drive the auger clockwise .
Removed the auger and found the lower bushing spinning in the bore so I purchased the updated auger retention plate with the
Nylatron bearing Part # 800935121 .
The auger shaft spun by hand in both directions with little to no effort as I was reassembling it .
Bench tested the new motor and it worked fine driving the auger in the clockwise direction with empty hopper.
Now when I try to run pellets through the auger , the motor twists and jams up against the blower housing which is opposite to the way the rubber stopper is mounted .
The rubber stopper on the retention plate seems to work fine but the motor twists in the opposite direction of the rubber stopper
Its rather obvious I have a binding issue and there is only 1 part remaining to replace .
Has to be the upper bushing
Whitfield says not available but they must have purchased that bushing from some company at one time or another ?
Does anyone have an aftermarket part number for the upper bushing ?
I did notice all kinds of play in the auger shaft and had read that someone repaired their stove by shimming the auger shaft so that
it was forced up into the upper bushing as much as possible , however the poster also replaced his auger motor so we really dont know if shimming helped the issue he had before the shaft was shimmed .
Does anyone know if there is a specification from Whitfield for the auger shaft travel once it is installed ?
Do the auger shafts have this much travel from new ? If I had to guess , I have close to 1/2 inch of free travel .
Once the auger motor is installed , this play is reduced but not by much . Its almost as if whitefield built the auger system with a little free play to accomodate oversize pellets or to allow for some wood dust to pass through .
I beleive my upper bushing is very wore out causing the auger shaft to bind
Anyone have any ideas I havnt thought of ?
I can post some pictures if youd like .

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

i doubt the upper bushing is causing binding, if it spins freely w/o motor.

most pellet stoves use a similar auger as the whitfields- who told you otherwise??

http://woodheatstoves.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=292_90_109&products_id=1646
the video at the bottom of this page might be of some help, but it sounds like you have a pretty good idea of whats going on..

i have a copy of the svc book if you like, pm me

 

[gearcruncher]

Dave , I cant thank you enough for the video .
I trusted that when I purchased the auger motor , they said they reversed the rotation as the motor I purchased had to be reversed noting that whitfields drive the auger clockwise .
I guess the manufacturer skipped that part when they sold it to me .
As I watched the video , I payed close attention to the auger motor rotation and listened to the fine gentleman who made the video hehehe .
Sure enough , mine was rotating in the opposite direction to the whitfield in the video .
What I originally didnt pay attention to was the direction thinking the distributor had followed through with their agreement to reverse the direction . If you hold the auger motor in your hand and power it up , the shaft spins CCW but if you stand in front of the stove facing the door of the stove the auger shaft truly does spin clock wise
I guess it all depends where you stand to watch that auger spin hehehe .
It was just a matter of removing the 2 bolts on the back of the AC motor and flipping the motor pack around .
Good as new DUHHHH
I know for next time now
Thanks

 

[Wood Heat Stoves]

glad it was helpful