Regency HI2450 Door Adjustment

[rookie76]

Hello! I'm still fairly new to our wood insert as this is year 3 of burning wood. Our insert is also 3 years old and I have never adjusted the door latch nor replaced the rope gasket around the door. A couple weeks ago when I actually had the fireplace cooled off, I tested the gasket and a dollar bill was able to be pulled through it easily, especially on the hinged side. It is loose enough that I occasionally get a puff of smoke into the room which caused me to do the test.

To try and fix this, I followed the manual by pulling out the latch and removing 1 washer from the top and bottom. After re-installing it, the handle was quite tight to latch. So much so, it would not open again after it hit the first latching point. After some disassembly and work, I managed to get it freed up and I put the washers back so it would work.

Does anyone have some advice on how to tighten it without causing the latch to binding/jam? For reference, there are no adjustments on the handle that I can see to make a smaller adjustment and the washers seem to be standard washers (it has just 2 on each bolt).

Thank you!

 

[begreen]

What condition is the stove door gasket? Could this be the reason for failing the dollar bill test? If the gasket is replaced it may require another latch adjustment.

 

[rookie76]

The door gasket is in good condition, at least as far as I can tell. It is the original and I don't see anything wrong with it (no nicks, divots, detaching, etc).
I had read that, if it fails the bill test, the first thing to do is adjust the latch and if that can't be tightened any further, then to replace the gasket.

 

[begreen]

Gaskets compress over time, even if they don't show wear. Repeated compressions tend to flatten them. I'm not understanding how tightening the latch will decrease the gap significantly on the hinge side.

If the door gasket is due, be sure to replace with the OEM gasket and not a third party substitute.

 

[rookie76]

I'm honestly not sure it would do much, but I was just following what the manual was saying to do. Replacing the gasket is certainly an option, I was just had tried step 1 before step 2.

Given how the latch jammed up so bad when I removed the 2 washers to tighten the latch, is there possibly something wrong I did to cause that, or is it normal? It wasn't just really tight, it took a c-clamp to squeeze the door tighter, to finally ease enough pressure from the latch so it would release and I could re-install the washers.

 

[begreen]

It may be that you did things correctly, but overshot your mark. Latch adjustments are usually small. In some cases it takes finding a thinner replacement washer to substitute rather than removing one.