Can I turn a Defiant Encore upside down?

SonOfEru said:

Hard to believe but I actually did this.

I've been finding the damper handle on my Defiant Encore 0028/2140 getting "sticky". It no longer swings smoothly into place, it's been catching about midway through the swing and I have had to gingerly tease it into full snapped-in shut. If I force it when it catches, it just stops dead right there and I have to sort of repeatedly nudge it until it lets go and finishes.

So I pulled the flue pipe off and figured out that the problem is at the place where the rod turns upward and slides along the middle of the back of the damper plate, under the steel tab. I was going to just take the tab off and smooth it down, since it looks a bit rusty. Last year it was ok, but starting with this year's burning season it has been sticky and getting worse.

Alas, I made the mistake of setting a flashlight down on top of the refractory cover, inside the flue collar I think you call it. It's one of those small LED flashlights that fits in your pocket. The flashlight brand is Defiant, how is that for fun?

But it was not fun when I bumped it and it rolled to the end and fell down in between the refractory assembly and the outside wall, on the damper handle side.

I've tried everything I can think of, but it's just too deep and too tight to get anything in there to grab it or stick to it, and it's aluminum so a magnet wont grab it. It's over a few inches from the edge of the flue collar and then down, so it's not just that it's too tight, I cant get a straight shot down to the flashlight. My arm doesnt bend like that.

The only things left that I can think of are

1. Remove the catalyst access panel. But the screws wont budge. I could finally take it to my workshop and weld a nut on each screw and back them out that way but would rather not just yet. Some day I will have to in order to change the catalytic, but not just yet. And I dont even know if with the plate off I could get into the cavity where the flashlight is. would I have to remove the refractory pieces and would that be risky? I would rather not test that idea

2. Turn the whole thing upside down and let it fall out. But again, what would that do to the refractory? Would pieces fall out and maybe break?

Any advice on those ideas, or any other ideas?

Actually I could also just lay it flat on its back, if upside down is bad. Then I could wiggle a coathanger in there and maybe scoot it a little bit at a time till I can get a hand in there.

Also I want to ask - one idea was to run a flexible rod down, with sticky stuff on the end, but the flashlight was too much covered with ash and black powder. I thought of using my shop vac, with a smaller and more flexible hose duct-taped to the regular hose, to get down there and clean out the ash and powder, so something might stick to the flashlight, but again I worry about damaging the refractory .

Luckily I do have central heat and it's on now, because it's already cold here in New Hampshire

Thanks

SonOfEru

Click to expand...

SonOfEru said:

As I mentioned, the flashlight is covered with that fine powder and nothing sticky will stick to it. I went to a hardware store looking for a magnet, taking another flashlight just like it, to see how strongly it might grab, only to find that a magnet does nothing - it must be aluminum.

But the guy in the store suggested this amazingly sticky stuff - it's a glue trap for rats and mice. A small flat plastic pan with this gick in it that would put the Tarbaby to shame. I put some of it on a flexible stick and touched it to the second flashlight and I could have just about shaken it and banged it on the edge of a table, and it would have held. So I stuck it down the hole many times and never came up with anything but powder covering the gick on the stick.

BTW, I could see the flashlight, using a mirror. It's on its side, still on as of last evening, and I can see the ash powder all over it. So sticky stuff is not going to work.

UNLESS I can vacuum out all the powder. Which was one of my original questions - would it be dangerous to the refractory chamber to try that?

So I feel my best bet will be to turn it on its back or upside down, but I do wonder and worry about the refractory if I try that.

Click to expand...

SonOfEru said:

Hard to believe but I actually did this.

I've been finding the damper handle on my Defiant Encore 0028/2140 getting "sticky". It no longer swings smoothly into place, it's been catching about midway through the swing and I have had to gingerly tease it into full snapped-in shut. If I force it when it catches, it just stops dead right there and I have to sort of repeatedly nudge it until it lets go and finishes.

So I pulled the flue pipe off and figured out that the problem is at the place where the rod turns upward and slides along the middle of the back of the damper plate, under the steel tab. I was going to just take the tab off and smooth it down, since it looks a bit rusty. Last year it was ok, but starting with this year's burning season it has been sticky and getting worse.

Alas, I made the mistake of setting a flashlight down on top of the refractory cover, inside the flue collar I think you call it. It's one of those small LED flashlights that fits in your pocket. The flashlight brand is Defiant, how is that for fun?

But it was not fun when I bumped it and it rolled to the end and fell down in between the refractory assembly and the outside wall, on the damper handle side.

I've tried everything I can think of, but it's just too deep and too tight to get anything in there to grab it or stick to it, and it's aluminum so a magnet wont grab it. It's over a few inches from the edge of the flue collar and then down, so it's not just that it's too tight, I cant get a straight shot down to the flashlight. My arm doesnt bend like that.

The only things left that I can think of are

1. Remove the catalyst access panel. But the screws wont budge. I could finally take it to my workshop and weld a nut on each screw and back them out that way but would rather not just yet. Some day I will have to in order to change the catalytic, but not just yet. And I dont even know if with the plate off I could get into the cavity where the flashlight is. would I have to remove the refractory pieces and would that be risky? I would rather not test that idea

2. Turn the whole thing upside down and let it fall out. But again, what would that do to the refractory? Would pieces fall out and maybe break?

Any advice on those ideas, or any other ideas?

Actually I could also just lay it flat on its back, if upside down is bad. Then I could wiggle a coathanger in there and maybe scoot it a little bit at a time till I can get a hand in there.

Also I want to ask - one idea was to run a flexible rod down, with sticky stuff on the end, but the flashlight was too much covered with ash and black powder. I thought of using my shop vac, with a smaller and more flexible hose duct-taped to the regular hose, to get down there and clean out the ash and powder, so something might stick to the flashlight, but again I worry about damaging the refractory .

Luckily I do have central heat and it's on now, because it's already cold here in New Hampshire

Thanks

SonOfEru

Click to expand...