Hall's 1991 DF 520 Build Thread

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CoalJockey
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Post by CoalJockey » Fri. Jan. 20, 2017 9:16 pm

Greetings gentlemen

Well, I am no stranger to the world of anthracite heating, having grown up and spent my whole life around this coal yard here. Over the last 10 years or so I have become quite familiar with EFM boilers as there are several operating here on the property. There are two 520's heating mine and my brothers house, with Jack Ryan building one and Steve Wilhelm refurbishing the other. I have overhauled the 1300 myself that heats the truck garage and a year or two ago I rebuilt a 900 that I got for a good price and this unit will be going in service in place of the 1300 soon.

My wife and I are currently fixing up another old civil-war era house that formerly belonged to my grandparents and it is 2 doors down from my current dwelling. It has an oil boiler in it now but of course coal heat is desired and when there is 60-70 ton of rice on hand less than 75 feet away, it makes no sense to buy oil.

So the chance came up to buy a 1991 DF520 and I jumped at it, being quite a bit newer than the 1950-something s-20 stoker I am running in the current house so it will likely stay where it is after we move. The new unit came out of a medical center that we supplied coal for and maintenance was generally pretty good as I knew the man who oversaw it. I will not disclose the sale price due to fears of getting flogged...

:rambo2: :crutch: :whip:

buuuuttttttt I will tell you I think it was the bargain of my lifetime!! :lol:

So here we go, I think it will be fun to document the progress on this unit. We will make it look like a brand new one, and hopefully one that outlives me. This may get long and drug out due to my many irons in the fire, but we will get it done and I hope you keep checking in. We are shooting to be in new house by 1st of April but we shall see how it goes.

Let's start stripping this lady down!

Attachments

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Last edited by CoalJockey on Fri. Jan. 20, 2017 9:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.


 
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CoalJockey
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Post by CoalJockey » Fri. Jan. 20, 2017 9:35 pm

Got started this afternoon getting the cabinet and insulation stripped off the unit. The tins are not in too bad of shape, with some minor surface rust around the bottoms. I know that the coil was shot and leaking into the boiler as they were not using it so I pulled it as well.

The nuts broke free with the aid of a little bit of Blaster and the threads on the studs look very good. I think if I chase them with a die to clean the threads we will be good to go. Although there was water leaking from someplace, the coil mount is smooth as a baby's bottom so I don't think it leaked under the gasket. The rust running down the backside is only surface rust on the paint and I am well pleased to see the boiler and base are both in very good shape and will be needing cosmetic updates only.

Knocked all the old putty out of the joints and the boiler is now ready to come off the base. This will happen another day. Here is today's progress:

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Born in November 1991

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Here we go!

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Set these aside for now.

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Insulation off

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Get this coil out

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Surface rust only, no penetration at all

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Lookin pretty good!

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Quittin' time

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Scottscoaled
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Post by Scottscoaled » Fri. Jan. 20, 2017 9:51 pm

That baby is pristine!

 
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Rob R.
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Post by Rob R. » Fri. Jan. 20, 2017 10:04 pm

That one is a beauty. Much nicer than what my '81 started as.

 
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Post by waldo lemieux » Sat. Jan. 21, 2017 7:03 am

Looks nice and it sounds like you are one of those guys that always lucks out. Heck maybe you outta just let it sit there and see if someone comes along and rehabs it for you! :D (thats just the jealousy talkin)

 
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CoalJockey
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Post by CoalJockey » Sat. Jan. 21, 2017 7:43 am

Thanks for eyein' her up, it is even in a little better shape than what I was anticipating.

Waldo -- haha nothing doing there! :lol: I am typically the dude that discovers the bargains AFTER it's much too late, you should see some of this junk around here. The neighbors Keystoker is about shot and he would have liked to have this one pretty badly. Once again price was not discussed for fear of irreparable physical harm... :poke:

I could tell there was rust runnin down the backside but could not see how bad with the jacket in my road. The next move on this part will be a good sandblasting inside and out, following up with a good paint job (outside only of course).

The unit will be residing in an outbuilding that is only 10-20 feet from the house, with the hot water lines running direct to basement. As it stands right now it is a 4-post patio with a roof and concrete floor but I will then frame it in, insulate, and block up a permanent flue. Windows and an 8-foot overhead door will make this a peach.

I know some here might give me a bawling out for not putting it in the house and missing out on some heat, but after dealing with deliveries all day long, ease of coal filling and ash removal is #1 priority to me. I am being very careful after herniating a disk in my neck (recieved shot #2 last week) and carrying ash tubs up the basement steps for the next 40 years just does not really interest me. I have been running my current 520 for almost 10 years in an outbuilding behind the house here and I love the fact that I can make as much dirt and noise as I please and it is not in the house.

Plumbing is still to be determined. My initial thoughts were to put an oil burner on the coal boiler too and run it as a DF, thinking I would then yank the oil boiler and tanks to get those beasts out of the basement. After staring at it for days on end (I have OCD) I am beginning to favor leaving the oil boiler where it is and teeing into the system as I did here at this house. Now with all of that being said, the current system there is steel monoflow with cast-iron radiators. Of course those radiators do not leave, but I am thinking of dividing it up into zones to get a little more comfort and efficiency. I will fine tune these details as we see how the finances hold up.

More pics to follow...thanks

 
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StokerDon
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Post by StokerDon » Sat. Jan. 21, 2017 8:52 am

That's a real nice boiler and stoker you got there. One thing that I noticed about it is the very shiny air pipe. The S-20 that I am currently running has a very shiny air pipe also. I've asked people if EFM used stainless for the air pipe at any point and got no for an answer.

If you get a chance, please check your air pipe to see if it's stainless.

Thank you,

-Don


 
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Post by scrapper_23jr » Sat. Jan. 21, 2017 5:35 pm

That's as nice as you described it when you told me you found it SCRAPPER

 
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Post by CoalJockey » Tue. Jan. 24, 2017 10:06 pm

Well, I made a little more progress today as it continued to dump the snow down this morning. I figured I could get started with disassembling the fan housing/firepot and start getting things cleaned up some.

I began with the firepot, cleaning out all the air-holes in the grates. Had a few pieces of iron fused over a hole or two, so ground them down and re-drilled them. Most of the fiberglass rope gaskets are about disintegrated and I needed to remove the grates anyhow to clean out the air chamber. The wire wheel on the 18-volt drill knocked the rust and scale off the grates and ash ring, everything cleaned up well. I don't think the grates are very old, the show very little wear and no cracks at all, they must have been installed properly. I did not get the pot bushing replaced yet but that is coming soon.
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Taking the firepot, gates apart to clean house

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Wire wheel cleaned grates up very well

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Ever since I have seen the thing after they removed the boiler, I have been staring at the worm pipe stub that they cut off at about 8 inches outside of the pot. I knew that the set screws that hold the pipe in place were more than likely froze up and I was dreading the day I would need to deal with them. We know how this process usually goes. Sure as chit they were froze solid. :x

I did make the feeble effort of applying some good red-hot torch flameage around the set screws but alas, 'twas no use. So after breaking them both off and saying some not very nice things, I soldiered on. I drilled them both out and got them weakened enough in order to get the pipe stub out. I thought perhaps I may have stirred things up in there enough that maybe a snowballs chance that an easy-out might bring the broken screws out. (Mistake #1) Yep you guessed it...one broken Easy-out stuck right in there pretty as pie.

Sooooo, after saying a few more not so nice things I then attempted to drill the easy-out, out. (We know how this usually goes). It was definitely soft enough and was drilling very nicely until for some unknown, screwed up reason the bit broke... INSIDE the easy-out. (Mistake #2)

At this point I had to sit down and reflect quietly for a little while. :mad:

Side note appropriate for this time: Do yourself a favor and USE high-temp ANTI-SIEZE when you do your refurbishing work. If someone would have done this on the original installation, it could have saved me hours this morning. I make sure they are slopped up good with A-S and then once or twice a year I crawl under there and break them loose to keep them moving. Ok back on topic.

I can make a long story short here so after some more drilling, I was able to use a good 5/16 tap to cut the threads back out, and it turned out very well. :) Just very time-consuming. They also broke off the bolt on the fines-clean out door when they took the unit out, so I drilled and tapped that as well.
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After the broken easy-out/broken bit fiasco

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Cutting the threads again

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Success!! New 5/16 bolts

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The remainder of the day saw the fan housing and reduction drive unit taken apart and this all took a bath in the parts washer. Next step on this part of the ride should be re-painting the fan casting and drive area, re-packing the fiberglass rope around the pot and grates.
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All scrubbed up after brushing down in the parts washer

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Till next time, cheers!

EDIT: Don, you asked me about that air pipe, I cleaned it up very well today on the wire wheel. I am 99% certain that it is not stainless. I think it just looks that way with the machine finish, sort of reminds me of a truck spindle cone. Seemed like it had waaayyy to much scale on it to be stainless from my observation.

 
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Post by Rob R. » Wed. Jan. 25, 2017 11:08 am

Nice work. Those grates looks very nice for a used machine.

 
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Post by lzaharis » Wed. Jan. 25, 2017 12:33 pm

About your bolts, you should purchase some grade 8 Allen bolts (Hex head cap screws) and Allen bolt spring washers for the tube and the clean out door and use them. You wont have any worries about them breaking on you either.
The Allen head bolts will cost a bit more but the sanity of having bolts that will not break is worth the extra cost per bolt to have them and the corresponding Allen bolt washers.

Thanks for providing the pictures of the repair work you are doing.

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Wed. Jan. 25, 2017 3:53 pm

Well Izzy, I see grade 8 bolts in those newly cleaned out holes, what is wrong with his grade 8 bolts ???? You are saying he has to buy the bolts from Allen,i take it you get royalties from Allen as this is not the 1st time I have seen you promoting bolts & hardware from Allen. Are you saying that grade 8 Allen bolts are actually tougher ?? maybe a grade 8.5 or 9 ?? Or are bolts from other companies only grade 7.5 ?? I thought that a grade 5 is just that & a grade 8 is just that.

 
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Post by CoalJockey » Wed. Jan. 25, 2017 6:56 pm

Well I better clarify things before we get in a pissin' match.

Those bolts in the photo are only grade 5, I just shoved them in there for the photo shoot. I was going to use some grade 8 hex-heads that I have here at the truck shop but Leon I do like the idea of the Allen head. It would have more of a manufactured look to it. :gee:

I need to get into town this weekend, I may grab a handful of them.

 
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StokerDon
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Coal Size/Type: Rice, Chestnut and whatever will fit through the door on the Harman
Other Heating: Noth'in but COAL! Well, Maybe a little tiny bit of wood

Post by StokerDon » Wed. Jan. 25, 2017 7:01 pm

Thanks for the metallurgical ID there CJ! I couldn't figure it out,shinny on the machined part, all rusty in the middle.

I would never put anybodies grade 8 bolts in a low stress, high heat, high corrosion environment like a coal boiler, grade 5 will do nicely. Gobs of anti-seize are your freind here. It's no fun drill'in out broken grade 8 bolts.

-Don

 
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windyhill4.2
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Post by windyhill4.2 » Wed. Jan. 25, 2017 7:52 pm

https://www.boltdepot.com/Default.aspx If we are all talking about the 2 bolts that hold the auger tube to the pot,those shown are grade 8....

OR, all of my grade 5 & grade 8 bolts are stamped wrong..

OR,i am seeing too many lines on those 2 bolts.

From an official bolt markings chart....

Grade 5 has 3 lines..

Grade 8 has 6 lines..

I see 6 lines on the 2 bolts in the newly cleaned holes..


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