25-pdvc Auger motor banged hole in itself

[Dr.Faustus]

I've had my 25 pdvc for almost a decade and never needed to replace any parts. Last night we come home and its 58 degrees in the house! Find out bottom auger motor not working. I took it out to bench test it and when i got it out I noticed a hole in the bottom of the gearbox! It was the shape of the little shelf under it.
After reinstalling the spare i keep, I figured out what went wrong. Periodically the motor lifts itself up off the little shelf it rests on. It then taps lightly down. You can hear it tap or rather light clunk when operating. It was doing that for 2 years but i always thought it was just the bottom auger clunking pushing pellets.
Well, 2 years of light tapping was enough to slowly smash a hole in the gearbox.

I seem to recall a sleeve on the gearbox ( which disintegrated many years ago) well i guess thats what it was for. Temporarily i installed a piece of rope gasket on the shelf so now the auger motor rests on that vs tapping on metal. luckily I checked the upper auger motor because the same thing is happening there too! its far from being a hole like the bottom one, so i put a piece of rope gasket there too to try to prevent this again.

The stove is almost much quieter now.

 

[Michael6268]

Englander used to put a piece of flat gasket under each motor. Probably fell off or disinigtated. I woulda thought the clunking would have driven you nuts before the motor crapped out! LOL

 

[Dr.Faustus]

It did drive me slightly nuts, but I work a lot so im not really home enough to say "hey i should take care of that clunking". I did one time a few months ago pull the auger and wire brush it thinking that was the cause but it didnt help anything and i didnt notice the bottom of the gearbox.

The hilarious part is i cleaned up that spot with a dremel and the auger motor still works! it was just the bent metal holding the gear back. It just has a hole in the case. Anyone have an old non working one they would want to part with?

 

[Beaudeen]

JB Weld works well to patch the hole..pick it up at HD or Lowes.

 

[Dr.Faustus]

JB Weld works well to patch the hole..pick it up at HD or Lowes.

hmm, that might just work if i take it apart, set it down on some wax paper jb weld up the hole, repack it with grease and put it back together.
How does jb weld hold up to heat?

 

[SidecarFlip]

10 years and no parts... It's way past time anyway. Take a piece of rubber heater hose, slit it lengthwise, slip it over the metal shelf and put a zip tie on it to hold it in place (zip tie not under the gearbos where it hits the rubber hose).

 

[Bioburner]

JB is has a high heat epoxy

 

[SidecarFlip]

I've never used JB weld. But then I have a TIG so welding anything conductive is doable.

 

[Bioburner]

I don't know if the stuff(polite version) they cast those housings of qualifies as metal. I would hate to try weld it. One errant high setting and the thing is a blob on the bench. The casing in that area is not need but for holding in some grease.

 

[SidecarFlip]

I don't know if the stuff(polite version) they cast those housings of qualifies as metal. I would hate to try weld it. One errant high setting and the thing is a blob on the bench. The casing in that area is not need but for holding in some grease.

Probably the same quality pot metal Briggs pressure die casts their blocks with in Miluakee...lol.

I suspect after almost a decade, the grease is hard as a rock and the gears are running dry. Might be a good time to open it up and have a look-see inside and if all looks reasonable, applying a layer of good EP grease in there....

It's about impossible to weld pot metal, especially thin walled like that because of the impurities in the metal itself.

I've welded some thin stuff (like a tape measure together and 2 pop cans back to back but the metal is better and it's not contaminated.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Loctite/Permatex makes some pretty exotic epoxy's that you can stick about anything together with including your fingers if you aren'r careful.

 

[Bioburner]

I would agree on the grease. Scrape it out and put in something better. Some of the boxes I have taken apart look like candle wax. But Sidecar and I both play with bigger and more extremes needing as good as we can get as who wants to do the project again. Or a bearing seizing at over 100 mph. $6-8 a tube is not much in the larger scope of things.

 

[Dr.Faustus]

I lined the shelf it rests on with some rope gasket and hi temp gasket adhesive, seems to be working quite well.

I did open up the gearbox to dremel the hole and clean it up. there was metal keeping the gear from spinning but otherwise no other damage besides the hole in the case. i connected to a test lead and it ran fine, even under simulated load.

The grease is definitely shot. it resembles little wax balls now, which is probably why it did not leak out when hot. i did remove the grease. I am going to try to jb weld the hole shut, then regrease it and keep it as a 3rd spare. I always keep a spare auger motor on hand brand new.

This did get me thinking however, about how the stove is aging and how much i depend on it. I ordered a bunch of extra spare parts like a combustion blower and a convection fan. I figure these parts probably dont have much life left in them. I do run my stove 24/7 and hard (but keep extremely clean).

My long term plan is to get a new stove, one that is maybe a bit larger so it works less hard to heat the house, and put that in its place. take the 25 pdvc and put it at the other end of the house, in the dining room, where it would still function but more of a nicety and a backup vs the workhorse.

I would definitely still stick with englander just not sure which one. I like the availability of parts to the DIY'er the great service and so far no complaints about reliability. Not many things go 10 yrs anymore without breaking down.

 

[SidecarFlip]

Was my very first stove 30 odd years ago. was a 2 knob analog one. I ran the heck out of it for almost 15 years and sold it to the people across the way and they still run it so they will last forever (so long as you replace the mechanical parts that is).... I wanted something multi fuel to run corn in so thats the way I went... and then corn got stupid priced. (but has come back down), oh well, Good to be flexible.

When I bought the original stove there were I think about 3 makes available around here, Dove Tek, Englander and Amaizablaze.

Good unit, no doubt.

 

[Dr.Faustus]

I had wanted to try a pellet stove for a few years. Wife wasnt thrilled at the idea. I finally won, but as I didnt know too much about them and how good it would work and how much money would be saved I went with the 25-pdvc. It wasnt a very large investment at all to get up and running, but the first week after I installed it i knew i had made a great decision. It is a very simple unit and does what it says it will do 99% of the time.
I cant even figure out how much money it has saved me over its life span, it is in the thousands if not higher, while keeping the house a lot warmer than what i'd ever dreamed of setting the furnace on. I avoided the whole oil boom entirely. This stove owes me nothing so I cant complain.
I did get lucky with a few things like placement. It's in the livingroom and our bedroom is farthest away so it's always cooler in there but we like the bedroom a bit cooler than the rest of the house. Otherwise its fairly even.
BTW the wife now loves it and theres no objection to getting another one. I later asked her why she was so against it. She thought it was more like a firewood thing and pictured stacks of wood, dirt, spiders and centipedes. She was really at ease when she saw the nice clean bags of pellets.

 

[BrotherBart]

But, but you could have had a Harman.

 

[Dr.Faustus]

Yes I could have and still can. Those things are fancy with a lot of bells and whistles. I'd worry that it would be about as reliable as that Audi I had. I drove Audi's courtesy car more than I drove my own, as the blasted thing was broken more often than not.
I just like to put the key in and go! I'm still getting the hang of this life thing but i am learning sometimes simple is the way to go.

 

[jeremygrimm]

Thanks for the tip. I'm re gasketing all parts on my 01 25-pvd this spring and I'll make sure that I replace the gaskets that are there. I'm sure 14 years of banging on even the gasket would wear things out.