Fresh Air Intake - Whitfield Advantage II-T C FS

[Copernican Theory]

Hello -

New member - first post.

I have a 1983 Whitfield Advantage II-T C FS. It runs great. I just purchased a fresh air intake kit online and the instructions seem simple enough but I got confused when I realized there is no air being sucked into the fresh air pipe on the back of the stove.

I took off the rear cover and found there is another hole (2nd and 3rd photos) that allows air to be drawn in from inside the stove, but that also does not appear to be drawing air.

There is a third smaller hole that you can barely see in the fuzzy photo (sorry about that) that appears to be a high temp cut-off switch.

What's even more confusing to me is that just past the two larger holes there is a barrier that prevents any air at all into the burn pit. I have no idea how this is supposed to work.

From the instructions it seems I should just be able to connect the new fresh air tube to the outlet at the back of the stove and run it outside. But when the stove is on it does not draw any air. And what prevents air from being drawn from the inside of the stove - that seems ridiculous to me.


Here's a pic of where I the instructions say I should connect the new air tube. (back of stove with rear cover off)


Pic of the second larger hole that will just draw in air from inside the stove - if it did draw air like I how I think this should work. The blocking rear 'wall' does not block the passage completely - there's a small gap that (I guess) allows a small amount of air to go through. You can see it in the circle marked 'A'.


And a final pic showing the cut-off switch 'B'. If you look through the larger hole to its left you can see the passage is blocked so it won't allow any air to come in through either of them.


I don't feel any air current being drawn into any of these holes .. where does the air come from?

If someone could point out to me what I'm missing I would appreciate it very much.