Wow, those photo's bring back memories. I am still happily burning one of these stoves, that I bought new and originally had those parts. You do NOT have a Jotul Series 8, but rather a Jotul 8 TDIC. The series 8 came after this, and had the catalyst built into the back panel. The ones we have, have the catalytic assembly bolted onto the inside of the flu opening. I see you are exausting out the back. Mine was switched around to vent through the top, so I don't have the exact experience you would have burning it with that baffle in place, but I will share my experience with you, as it is generally applicable. As I said, I bought mine new. It was my first wood stove and I really had nothing else to compare it to. I was happy with it in general, but my one complaint was that I had a hell of time getting larger logs in that should have fit into that stove. It was because of that monstrous baffle was just sitting there in the middle of the burning area. Several years after I bought this stove I was having a conversation with a Jotul USA engineer in Maine, it was about something different, but this topic came up. He said "I shouldn't tell you this, but I would remove that baffle". He went on to explain to me that they needed to very quickly design this catalyst assembly to meet new EPA emission rules, and to also pass UL safety standards, that baffle was included. He said it was only needed to meet very stringent testing that really wasn't typical of real use and he acknowedged that it really interfered with loading the stove. So he said my best bet was just to remove it. So I did, and I was very happy I did. I never had any problems without it and I could fit so much more into the stove. I did hower still have a bit of annoyance from those two oval shaped baffel mounts that you can see in your photos. They were still protruding and sometimes preventing a log from fitting in. So I ended up torching those off as well. I was then very happy. After over 25 years of heavy operation, my cataylst box did become warped to the point that the damper door would no longer operate. At that point I took off the entire catalyst assembly, put in some new parts, and am now running it as a pre-cat stove. I am again very happy with it. Would the catalyst box have warped had the baffle been left in place? Maybe not, but I am still glad I removed it. So my advice is to run it without the baffle. However, if you really want it in there... The baffle hangs on the catalyst assembly at two points- those oval shaped protruding brackets. In you photo, one has a bolt in it. You need an identical bolt for the other side. You simply bolt the baffle on, using these. It will not be a solid unmovable mount, but a rather flexible one where you can kind move the baffle up and down a bit (the bolts acting somewhat like a hinge joint). If mounted properly, the baffle will kind kind of curve up and block the opening into the flue connector. It's job is just just to prevent a heavy fire from going up into the flue pipe. Again, it was considered a clumsy add on that took a lot of workable volume out of the stove. Let me know if you have any other questions about this. It's always nice to see other people still running these stoves.
