Rebuilding a FREE Jotul F500

[PancakeFancier]

Hey everybody! Longtime lurker, first time poster. Hope you can spare some advice on tinkering around with a sweet old stove!

Basically, I saw a stove on the side of the road. Pulled over and saw it was in fact a Jotul F500! It was in poor condition but I love to tinker so I hope you can help me restore it to working order. Drove back home and got my ratchet set and a mallet and my wife and I disassembled it on the side of the road so we could get it in the back of our impreza. Haven’t done that before but it was surprisingly easy and quick. In terms of condition, the exterior pieces seem to be perfectly fine, but the guts are pretty much shot. Inside, I found a burned out baffle, rusty old air manifold with rear tube loose, and even the grate was super warped. Clearly it’s been overfired.

I mostly want to tinker around and learn some skills, maybe replace the insides and rebuild. Do you think it’s possible to get the manifold and baffle etc and wind up with a safe, functioning stove? I’m willing to put some money into it as a project but only if it can be restored.

Lastly, can you help me ID it? I think it’s the first version. The label on the back says Oslo f500 and serial number is 008751. I’d love to know roughly what year, but it’s almost certainly old enough to drive and maybe old enough to enlist.

 

[DAKSY]

Call your local Jotul Dealer. He can identify the manufacture date based on the serial number.
I searched online & there does not seem to be anything that can help ID the year.

 

[EbS-P]

Did it have a baffle, if so what was it made of?

 

[PancakeFancier]

Baffle was totally burned out cast iron. Judging from some other serial numbers that have been identified on the forum I think it’s a 2002/2003 stove.

Looking more closely at it, I’ll need probably $1000 in parts. So either I rebuild it and replace my PE vista or try to clean up the exterior castings and sell them as parts. Again, mostly excited to tinker around with this.

If I rebuild and start using it, I’ll need it to be right hand loading. Anyone know if you can reverse the sides so I can put the door on the right?

It could be an awesome stove and passion project but I could probably buy one refurbished for $1000, right?

 

[PancakeFancier]

Baffle was totally burned out cast iron. Judging from some other serial numbers that have been identified on the forum I think it’s a 2002/2003 stove.

Looking more closely at it, I’ll need probably $1000 in parts. So either I rebuild it and replace my PE vista or try to clean up the exterior castings and sell them as parts. Again, mostly excited to tinker around with this.

If I rebuild and start using it, I’ll need it to be right hand loading. Anyone know if you can reverse the sides so I can put the door on the right?

It could be an awesome stove and passion project but I could probably buy one refurbished for $1000, right?

Parts needed are air manifold, side liners, baffle, all new insulation gasket, ropes, maybe even the top casting of the base assuming it’s cracked. Starting to think it’s not worth it.

 

[PancakeFancier]

Parts needed are air manifold, side liners, baffle, all new insulation gasket, ropes, maybe even the top casting of the base assuming it’s cracked. Starting to think it’s not worth it.

Also the grate, which is warped to hell!

 

[EbS-P]

Clean it up slap it back to together and put a nice plant in it and sell it as art. Have you see those r
Fake fires that use fabric and a fan maybe that instead of the plant. 1000$ working stove this year might be hard to come by but that’s about the ballpark. Probably not worth fixing in my opinion.

 

[D. Hermit]

If that grate is shot then so is the bottom. This stove would not be worth the rebuild for someone just tinkering. This is a 2000-2003 model, and some of the parts will not be an even swap fit. And this stove has many places that require cement, not all of which are obvious.

And unfortunately, as far as parts go, I doubt you have anything thats worth anything or is even needed by anyone. The only parts people ever need for these stoves are tops, bottoms, grates, air manifold's. Everything else is bulletproof essentially and wont break. I have tons of 500s in my stove graveyard w all the good parts taken out, and I never get calls for people wanting anything but the pieces I talked about.

And you can not change the side the loading door is on. F500 is left hand door, f600 is right hand door.