Regency 2500I cat stuck in closed position

[Scout89]

Good morning everyone,
First time user to this forum. I have a Regency 2500I that I installed exactly a year ago, this morning when I woke up and went to get the fire going again I was faced with a little problem, the cat will not slide out. Once coals cool down I will remove burner tubes and fire board to access the cat and see what is going on. Has anyone had any experience with this problem before? It feels as if the cat is damaged and not allowing it to pull out. Any insight is greatly appreciated!

 

[begreen]

Something in the cat slide mechanism may be warped. Try again when the stove is cold to see if frees up.

 

[Scout89]

Took it all apart this afternoon, the cat shows sign of significant damage on both top and bottom sides. I believe it is under warranty, reassembled without the cat for now until I can get a replacement.

 

[begreen]

Any thoughts on how this happened? It looks like it may have failed due to thermal shock.

 

[Scout89]

I am uncertain as to what may have caused this, but the fractured debris from the cat is most definitely what caused it to be stuck in the “engaged” position. While I was in there today I noticed that even when the lever is pulled all the way out the cat is still covering about two thirds of the flue. There are a couple of zip screws that act as a stop for the cat assembly, is this typical? Seems to me that side of the cat would be collecting debris etc prior to stove coming to temperature enough before cat is active?

 

[begreen]

I would expect it to pull completely out of the flue outlet path during startup. Was the degradation at the end that always was in the flue path? I'm not sure about the stops. bholler is most likely to start seeing this stove in the field.

 

[Scout89]

I would expect it to pull completely out of the flue outlet path during startup. Was the degradation at the end that always was in the flue path? I'm not sure about the stops. bholler is most likely to start seeing this stove in the field.

Yes the degradation was the end that was constantly in the flue path

 

[Garbanzo62]

I has a similar issue, the cat would be hard to disengage. Once I got it free it would slid in and out fine until the next reload. Tonight it kept hitting something, finally got it free, not engaging it until I can call cust service