The question:
Is there a trick to removing the lower fireback plate?
The (mostly unimportant) details:
My folks had this VC Vigilant II in their house from when they purchased it in late 1983 or early 1984. The date stamped on the back of the upper fireback plate is 11/15/83.
This stove was only used for maybe five to seven years, then sat idle because my father wasn't satisfied with the piping (as it was reduced from 8" to 6", which is not sufficient for this stove). After a few years of sitting idle in the living room, it was removed and the hearth broken down and removed. The stove lay idle in their basement for the past ten years or so. Mice had taken residence, and this thing is totally littered with seeds and packing from the rodentia. The outside has a good bit of rust which I'm not too worried about cleaning up.
I recently had my oil furnace replaced with a gas furnace which is direct vented, and so I have the chimney freed up for the wood stove. I loaded it up in the truck and brought it to my house, and got it in the basement (with help, of course). My decision to clean out the baffles turned out to be the best decision I could have made, since there was so much creosote and mouse "stuff" that there was no way anything could have flowed through...
I have tried to google up an answer, and searched around hearth.com. Lots of good, useful information, but nothing specific to this lower fireback plate that I could find. Perhaps my Google-Fu isn't that great.
Any help with this is much appreciated.
To be clear as to where I'm stuck, I've removed piece 68, 43, and 5 in the following drawing. Piece 47 appears to be stuck to piece 40, and I don't see any place that it screws into it.
(broken link removed to http://stovepartssales.com/product/vigilant-ii/)
Is there a trick to removing the lower fireback plate?
The (mostly unimportant) details:
My folks had this VC Vigilant II in their house from when they purchased it in late 1983 or early 1984. The date stamped on the back of the upper fireback plate is 11/15/83.
This stove was only used for maybe five to seven years, then sat idle because my father wasn't satisfied with the piping (as it was reduced from 8" to 6", which is not sufficient for this stove). After a few years of sitting idle in the living room, it was removed and the hearth broken down and removed. The stove lay idle in their basement for the past ten years or so. Mice had taken residence, and this thing is totally littered with seeds and packing from the rodentia. The outside has a good bit of rust which I'm not too worried about cleaning up.
I recently had my oil furnace replaced with a gas furnace which is direct vented, and so I have the chimney freed up for the wood stove. I loaded it up in the truck and brought it to my house, and got it in the basement (with help, of course). My decision to clean out the baffles turned out to be the best decision I could have made, since there was so much creosote and mouse "stuff" that there was no way anything could have flowed through...
I have tried to google up an answer, and searched around hearth.com. Lots of good, useful information, but nothing specific to this lower fireback plate that I could find. Perhaps my Google-Fu isn't that great.
Any help with this is much appreciated.
To be clear as to where I'm stuck, I've removed piece 68, 43, and 5 in the following drawing. Piece 47 appears to be stuck to piece 40, and I don't see any place that it screws into it.
(broken link removed to http://stovepartssales.com/product/vigilant-ii/)
