GJ-5-C Gentleman Janitor

NEW BOILER TIME! YAY!!!

CoalKirk was searching marketplace a couple weeks ago and he found this GJ-5-C Gentleman Janitor for real cheap. I drove up to Milton PA this morning and picked it up. Data plate, GJ-5-C , 219R. GJ-5-C stamped in the front of the boiler.

This is a real neat small boiler. It's about the same size as my old GJ-671 and it is the
same boiler that Scrapper heats his house with. Naturally he has an EFM in his.

The Small Gentleman Janitor

The guy I got this from cleaned it all up and painted it. He never used it and it sat in an out building for a couple years until he decided to sell it. It's not rusty, the fire door isn't broke, the ash door isn't broke and I didn't have to pull it out of a basement! The grates and the pot ar in good shape. The bin pipe, bin auger, pot auger and a mystery auger. Pot auger and bin auger need a little work. More later.
-Don

Nice, looking forward to , More Later. Scott

Scott in nwct wrote: ↑

Sat. Jul. 15, 2023 7:58 pm

Nice, looking forward to , More Later. Scott

Thanks Scott!

I hope your little Gentleman Janitor / EFM is doing well!

For this one it looks like we are going to keep it all Gentleman Janitor. It is a good excuse to use the New Old Stock GJ-51 stoker that I've had sitting in the basement for years. Made a few measurements last night and it looks like the pot will end up in the right spot. This stoker has never even had coal in it. Some of the paint is still on the burn rings! Data plate.


The only thing I will have to buy is a bin pipe. I still need to look at my bin augers to see if any are good enough to use.

-Don

Pretty sure my father in law has a domestic coil for one of these. Let me know if you would want it, he probably just hasn't thrown it out because it's copper and I think he leak tested it

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Sun. Jul. 16, 2023 12:28 pm

Pretty sure my father in law has a domestic coil for one of these. Let me know if you would want it, he probably just hasn't thrown it out because it's copper and I think he leak tested it

Thanks for the offer but...

Well, I wasn't going to work on this today...

I knew I was going to have to pull the DHW coil because the previous owner told me he accidently left the chain hook inside when he sealed the coil flange. I figured this wouldn't be a big deal so I pulled the coil. Then I saw why it is a good idea to plug up a boiler before you store it.
MOUSE NESTS!!! Cleaned it all out. Blew the crap out of the coil fins. One other problem is the left and right edges of the coil sealing surface of the boiler have a good bit of ware. That means it probably won't stay sealed.

I don't really have a use for the DHW coil so this boiler will likely be taking a trip to the welder to be plated over. We're gunna do some serious boiler flushing first though!

-Don

What is StokerDon going to do with it ? Keep or sell ?

That unit is in very nice shape. Good call on checking for a mouse nest, boy that would have caused some headaches if you didn't find it.

Do you see any differences between the stoker that came with it and your NOS one?

Rob R. wrote: ↑

Mon. Jul. 17, 2023 4:08 pm

Do you see any differences between the stoker that came with it and your NOS one?

They both have 8 burn rings and a 14" ash ring.

More critical than that is the pipe length from the mounting plate to the pot. This is what sets the pot in the middle of the boiler. And since the auger and gearbox coupling go right through the pot on these stokers, that pipe is what sets the auger flightings (Foreword and Reverse) in the center of the pot. If that is misaligned it will crush the coal pretty good. The original and the NOS are 6.75" long. So the NOS stoker should fit in there just like the original stoker. The feed rate might be different but that can be adjusted.

-Don

I am amazed how compact this GG boiler is. Looking forward to reading this link as the project evolves.

ben wrote: ↑

Fri. Jul. 21, 2023 10:40 am

I am amazed how compact this GG boiler is. Looking forward to reading this link as the project evolves.

Thanks!

Your right. The smallest Gentleman Janitor boilers are real small when compared to EFM, Van Wert, Keystoker, ect...

This one the boiler is actually noticeably smaller than the base it sits on. -Don

BOILER CLEANING DAY!!!

I want to be sure we got all that mouse nest crap out of the boiler before it goes to the welder. I rolled it over on it's side and hit it with a bunch of compressed air to get all the crap from the bottom up on top where I could get it out. Flushed it good with hot water.

Then flipped it upside down and flushed it some more. Then hiked it up in the air, finished flushing while reaching in there and pulling remaining crap out with my hand. Didn't really get much out of it but at least we know it's all clean in there! Now I have it sitting on some wood draining out. Time to go eat lunch! -Don

Don what is the water capacity and the BTU output/input of that thing? and how many freaking chimneys must you have in your house?! You have every flavor of coal burning appliance!

Retro_Origin wrote: ↑

Sat. Jul. 22, 2023 5:55 pm

Don what is the water capacity and the BTU output/input of that thing? and how many freaking chimneys must you have in your house?! You have every flavor of coal burning appliance!

The smallest Gentleman Janitors are rated at 95,000BTU. That's probably very conservative and way more that what I need.

I like to have options.

OK, it's all cleaned up now. Here are some better shots of the DHW coil area. It's actually pretty bad. The boiler walls are thick so it's not about to rust through, but it sure won't seal well. Got it all sealed up so no bugs or critters will get in it again. Next weekend we'll take it up to Scrapper's place so he can weld a plate over that big hole. Got a few Axeman Anderson 130's to sell. 2 are in great condition and ready to use. The third one needs a small amount of repair work. Probably won't advertise them until heating season. Let me know if you want one, they won't be expensive! -Don

Today it was time to do some more work on the GJ-5.

I took the boiler and the augers up to Scrapper this morning. He says most of his work these days is building bases and fixing augers. He had a 700 and a 520 in the shop that he was making bases for. Says he's getting a 900 in soon.

This evening I figured I'd put the stoker that came with this unit together. Rings, pot, bushings and gearbox are all in real nice shape. I used the auger and pipe from the NOS unit in the basement. Once the augers are fixed and I get new pipes, I'll have 2 good running GJ stokers! Since this boiler is so small, the ash ring on this stoker is almost non-existent! The other surprizing thing is that the stoker sticks up a full 3" above the bottom of the boiler. Normally on other stokers the ash ring is about level with the bottom of the boiler. Sometime this weekend we might push this thing outside and do a test fire!

-Don

TEST FIRE!!!

Yesterday we put the stoker together with the auger and pipe from the NOS GJ stoker. Wheeled it outside, put a trash can of Rice coal on the end of the auger and fired it up! After about an hour of running it looked like this. The weird, small ash ring is 13" but where the bolts are it is 14". It didn't seem to have any problem with the Rice coal so we should be good!

One problem we did have was the motor. It is an old Westinghouse motor with a lot of end play. That will be getting replaced. To keep the test going I swapped the motor from the NOS stoker in. While we were at it, we shot some video of the little beast running!


There ya go, Summer Time coal Burn'in Action!
-Don