Axeman Anderson 1959 130M

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StokerDon
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Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
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 » Sun. Aug. 26, 2018 12:05 pm

Yesterday I drove out to Cumberland County and picked up another 130M!
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I have good reason to believe that this one was refurbed within the last 10 or 12 years. It has an extended DHW coil flange welded on it.
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And, the base, doors and boiler all look pretty nice. Not like a 60 year old stoker boiler. The doghouse actually looks NEW.
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I got 2 extra fans, some auger bearings and bushings with it. This one also had an old Honeywell S400B timer connected to it.
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Data and "H Stamp" are right on the boiler on these old ones. Date is 1959.
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The transfer head was re-stamped from "4972" to this boiler's "4997" serial number.
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I find it interesting that this 1959 transfer head has the "coal chip slot" in it the same as my 1991 130M. Others on the forum have reported that their older 130M's do not have this slot. I wonder why some have it and some don't???
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Now all I need is some time to work on all this stuff!
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Maybe I'll do a quick cleanup on this one, slide it in place and fire it up.

I pulled this out of an interesting install. It was in a small shed across the driveway from the house. This made for a short run of underground piping, about 25 feet. The small boiler room was about 1/3rd of the shed. The rest was a coal bin able to hold 4 ton. The auger and doghouse went right into the bin. Nice!

-Don


 
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nepacoal
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Post by nepacoal » Sun. Aug. 26, 2018 12:09 pm

And the boiler farm keeps growing! Nice find SD

 
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McGiever
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Stoker Coal Boiler: AXEMAN-ANDERSON 130 "1959"
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Coal Size/Type: PEA,NUT,STOVE /ANTHRACITE
Other Heating: Ground Source Heat Pump and some Solar

Post by McGiever » Sun. Aug. 26, 2018 4:16 pm

My 1959 AA is number 4778 and I have a second 1959 AA stored away that is 15 digits from the first one.

 
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Post by CDF_USAF » Sun. Aug. 26, 2018 7:33 pm

So you're the lucky one on that guy. I called and he said someone was on the way by the time I saw the ad with pics.

The boiler farm grows some more. We should get some more restoration videos now that the pressure is off, right?

 
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StokerDon
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Posts: 7484
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
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 » Sun. Aug. 26, 2018 8:01 pm

Right!

Hopefully this one won't need much of a restoration though. There will be a playlist of tedious, boring videos of me and the cat fumbling around with this thing.

Here's a shameless plug for my other 130M thread.
AA130
And the video playlist associated with it.


-Don

 
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StokerDon
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Posts: 7484
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
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 » Sat. Sep. 01, 2018 9:50 am

Yesterday afternoon, I pulled it out of the garage to do some inspection.
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I connected power to it to see how it ran. I found it very strange that this armored cable for the power input has 3 black wires instead of black, white and ground.
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I used an Ohm Meter to figure out that the wire with the red maker comes from the timer. The wire with the black alligator is hot and the one with the red alligator is neutral.
It ran fine, no noises from the motor, gearbox or bearing box, the belts are old and squeaky though.

Junction box wiring. The cable coming in on the right by the green alligator is the main power plus timer.
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Ashing leaver and associated parts are all in real good shape.
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The aquastats are pretty clean looking too. I have no idea how old they are. The High Limit aquastat is actually a dual aquastat. I think I can wire that one as a dump zone as well as a High Limit, Nice!
They also wired a Kill switch and mounted it in the High Limit aquastat, also Nice!
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The grate is pretty nasty and rusty looking. It's just a hunk of steel though, it will get cleaned up and work just fine.
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I used a pry bar to lift the grate enough to get a look at the grate rollers. The two back ones don't have flat spots worn into them so they should be good. The roller on the right moves fine but the roller on the left is stuck.
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A shot of the gearbox. This one is a Ohio Gear 50:1 unit.
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And now for the really nasty part.

Since this Axeman was installed in a shed with the chimney pipe going strait up through the roof, when they shut it down for a few years, all kinds of debris got into the cyclone separator.

There was about 10 pounds of crap stuck inside filling the cyclone separator more than half way. This debris completely rusted way the cone at the bottom of the separator, we will need a new one of those.
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The rust inside is pretty bad. Hopefully it didn't eat into the boiler.

Today, we will pull the grate, try to get the remnants of the cone out and do a pressure test.

-Don

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Sat. Sep. 01, 2018 10:20 am

:lol: Don, the grate is warranteed forever! I'll wager it doesn't need replacing.


 
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hotblast1357
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Post by hotblast1357 » Sat. Sep. 01, 2018 6:10 pm

I replaced my cone with a stainless steel one from AHS, it was either 60 or 90 bucks.. mine was rotted out too..

 
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StokerDon
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Posts: 7484
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
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 » Sat. Sep. 01, 2018 9:31 pm

I think I should include a shot of the ashing solenoid here. This one has a pretty readable data plate on it.
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I pulled the grate out. It has ash caked on it as expected. This is what happens if you shut one of these down for a long time without cleaning that ash out of it. It's not a big deal to clean off.
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Here's a good shot of whats left of the cone at the bottom of the cyclone separator.
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That's the bolt that holds it in.
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Theirs no chance this bolt isn't totally rusted in so I just tried to snap the head off. I ended up rounding the head so then I cut the head off with the grinder.
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I thought I could then bang it out with a drift punch, no such luck. I had to drill it out.
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Here's whats left of it.
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Then it was time to get it sealed up for the pressure test.

I got the nipple that was cut off out of the return with the big pipe wrench and the 4 foot cheater pipe. Then I installed a ball valve so it can be flushed out.
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Put a known good Tridicator gauge in it. Tomorrow we will pressure test it.
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I did some scraping in the cyclone separator. I might need to do some more to get the new cone in there.
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I shot videos of a lot of this fun and excitement. I will try to get some of them uploaded over night.

-Don

 
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StokerDon
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Posts: 7484
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
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 » Mon. Sep. 03, 2018 9:31 am

Yesterday we made quite a bit of progress on the old Axeman. I even got around to creating a Playlist for the videos.

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I wheeled it outside and hooked the hose to it, then filled it up.
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The first leak was the boiler drain, no surprise there, it seems they always leak. It will get replace during the install. For now I tightened the packing nut and the leak stopped.
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The next leak was the DHW coil. The gasket doesn't leak but the coil has a hole in it somewhere. I hate these things! :x
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I put a couple brass plugs in the coil and continued.
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I pressured it up and at about 30PSI or so, the PRV started burping just like it should. I left it at 30 and checked for leaks. The boiler and DHW gasket are OK but the big gate valve on the supply started leaking. That's a shame, I wanted to use it just because it looks so cool.
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I plugged the gate valve, replaced the PRV with a ball valve and pressured it up to 45PSI.
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I checked for leaks, especially in that nasty looking cyclone separator.
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NO LEAKS!!! PRESSURE TEST === PASS!!!
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Then we moved on to some cleaning. I pulled the bearing and fan assembly out. The fan looks good. I will do a closer inspection later.
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With the fan assembly out of the way, I removed the 2 bolts that hold the ashing lever to the base, this includes the electrical junction box.

Then I removed the 2 aquastats and the Anthrastat. After removing the mounting nuts from the rubber isolators on the front of the base and the big nut on the rubber foot, I was able to remove the whole motor mount assembly. This allowed me to remove all of the wired electrical components without disconnecting any wiring.
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Removing all that stuff made it easy to scrape all the crap out of the swirl chamber.
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This boiler has had a repair ring welded into the swirl chamber. This is a high ware area in the Axeman Anderson. The fan constantly pelts this area with ash and debris. After a few decades, it wares through the boiler plate.
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The other boiler ware area is the bottom of the fire chamber. This area is actually part of the ash slicer and wares down over time. This boiler has had a "half moon" welded in to repair this area.
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The boiler is good to go now and will last many, many years.

Next I gave the front area a good de-greasing and cleaning.
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The "Ohio Gear" speed reducer that came on these old Axeman's is really neat looking. On this one, we are just going to change the oil and run it.
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Next will be more cleanup and getting it ready for paint. I don't know when I will be able to paint it, the humidity down here has been insane and it isn't going way anytime soon.

-Don

 
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Post by CDF_USAF » Tue. Sep. 04, 2018 8:33 pm

The oppressive humidity is kickin here as well, the only thing doing well in it is the grass.

Though, you do have enough fire power to dry some stuff out if'n you were feeling overly froggy about getting this thing painted.

 
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StokerDon
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Posts: 7484
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Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
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 » Tue. Sep. 04, 2018 9:01 pm

CDF_USAF wrote:
Tue. Sep. 04, 2018 8:33 pm
Though, you do have enough fire power to dry some stuff out if'n you were feeling overly froggy about getting this thing painted.
I've done that before by closing up the garage and turning the heat on for a day of two. That drys it out real good. If I tried that these days I would just pass out from heat exhaustion! :lol:

Tonight I fought with the grate rollers.

The good news is, after the penetrating oil worked it's way in, I could turn the two stuck rollers. The bad news is, the cotter-pins were rusted in place just like my 1991 130M. I ended up cutting them off.
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I assume these rollers were replace at the last refurb.
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The 2 that were stuck are just starting to get flat-spotted. I can probably fix these.
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-Don

 
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Stoker Coal Boiler: Formerly AA-130

Post by CDF_USAF » Tue. Sep. 04, 2018 9:37 pm

Yea...that's the overly froggy part. I about died just being outside this afternoon watching the kid bounce on the trampoline. How he did it is beyond me.

Those rollers can't be that pricey, can they? Or is it possible to just rotate them 180 on the install to use the other side. Think they make a full rotation?

 
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StokerDon
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Posts: 7484
Joined: Mon. Nov. 11, 2013 11:17 am
Location: PA, Southern York County!
Stoker Coal Boiler: Gentleman Janitor GJ-5, Van Wert VA-600, Axeman Anderson130 X3.
Hand Fed Coal Furnace: Harman SF3500 reduced down to 3 grates connected to its own plenum
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. Sep. 05, 2018 7:25 pm

CDF_USAF wrote:
Tue. Sep. 04, 2018 9:37 pm
Or is it possible to just rotate them 180 on the install to use the other side. Think they make a full rotation?
The part that gets flat-spotted is the part that the grate sits on making it easy to roll the grate back and forth. It needs to be round or the grate drags back and fourth. Eventually they will make a full rotation.

Once fly ash and dampness get together between the shaft and the roller, the roller can become stuck on the shaft. The roller stops rolling and the grate drags back and forth on it wearing it flat.
CDF_USAF wrote:
Tue. Sep. 04, 2018 9:37 pm
Those rollers can't be that pricey, can they?
Probably not, let me go see if I can find the receipt for the parts I bought for the other Axeman,,,,

....I found it! Grate rollers - $10.21 a piece, $40.84 for a full set. I still have to order the cone so I guess I could spring for a set of new rollers.

-Don

 
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coaledsweat
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Post by coaledsweat » Wed. Sep. 05, 2018 7:54 pm

That, or you could go out and buy a lathe and make your own! :lol:


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