Van Wert VA600 Rebuild

Drifted the brass pin out and took the gears apart today. I could barely turn by hand a single gear by itself, due to the old hardened grease, just a hardened film. This is telling me that I should completely disassemble, degrease/clean, and all new grease on assembly.

Now is the time to make it the best you can.

Cleaned up nicely, now to the bead blaster. Very large and solid bronze race guide fittings for the auger shafts and gears to ride. I will pic these later.

Man, that is a nice boiler!

AND, it has a sense of humor too!

-Don

Very cool....the designers were not afraid of using some boiler plate! Keeps the footprint as small as possible...very cool design.

good results using a stiff wire wheel, I will put it on low horses to wheel the lower 1/2

That part looks like it was well protected under it's original paint. If I read the description of how this works correctly, that part will need to be Hi Heat paint.

And of coarse that brings us to the question, What color is it going to be?

-Don

http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/rust-ole ... _vc=-10005

change of mind, I went with Orange 500, w/black 1200 for the exhaust sides
I got the domestic core out, it was a bit tricky, But I went careful and slow.
Then wire wheeled the dom area

Lots of cleaning with rags and min spirits before paint. Inside pics of the dom h2o spot, the back lower you can see the 2 double walls areas, this area really needed cleaning/scrubbed and flushing. Still plenty of work to go.

NICE!

-Don

It makes sense to me, to line up the height tabs when stacking the burn pot rings, that way whatever pressure from top maxo mungo ring will be dispersed equally, and the area of the ring in between the tabs can float during expansion/contraction. As compared to not lining them up and have stress in all different directions, my opinion. Glass beads makes old thing new again. back to the bat cave, for more work on the great pumpkin, all parts cleaned and painted. Now to look in the transmission.

The oil in the transmission was clean and from the looks of the paint on the drain plug it had never been touched with a wrench. As long as the seals are still good, it is good to go. There was also not any sign of play in either shaft. Nice solid well built unit. I was thinking of maybe a double pulley, as of now, I believe the motor and tran are both 3". So if a double pulley on the tranny side, 3" , 4", which would give me some room to slow it down a bit, With shifting of pulley on the shaft needed for belt line up. Any one done this before?

NO! NO! NO! Do not line up the spacers between the burn rings!

The spacers need to be staggered so they will support each other under very high heat. If they are lined up, the rings will sag under high heat. This will cause premature grate failure and if not caught in time will cause a pot burn through.

Caveat ; I do not know this from personnel experience. This is what Danny at General Machine in Peckville PA told me a few weeks ago. General Machine sells and manufactures Gentleman Janitor and Van Wert parts.

-Don

Thanks Don. I thought I would check run out on the shafts, all is well. I may get a few feet 1/2" Stressproof TGP Rd +.001/-.001 to have in case of... , it is cheap from speedymetal, $3 or $4 a foot plus ship. Reason being the 1/2" shaft is .501 od, going into the pulley and fan that is 0.500"id. Big hammer at the factory.
Stressproof is within tolerance.
I played w/the original a little, it fits nicely now. and mounted and spun the fan , all is well.
If any one needs a reference, my van wert has roller chain and sprockets size 41

https://a89b8e4143ca50438f09-7c1706ba3fabeeda7947 ... 1440169698

There are a many timers out there. With this one, I am assuming if "one event" is programed in 1 hour, say one minute of run time/hour "Idle mode", and unit is run, it will continuously repeat itself , after the "one event" is finished.
When the manual says, "up to 14 on and 14 off events can be programmed in a 24 hour period", this means other "events" can be programmed, and the ones that you have turned "ON", will run thru in the order of progression, how ever you have them programmed.
I guess the big question here is, will the unit repeat the event or events, that you have turned on.
A max of 14 on and 14 off events can be run in a 24 hr period, provided that their time will fit within that 24 hr period.
And a max of 28 events can be programmed in waiting to be turned on/off, how you see fit to use them.
If I am correct in the repeat idea, this unit could be useful in fine tuning your off/on times according to the heat load of the day or upcoming week. I would probably write the 1 thru 28 events on the wall, so I would know which one/ones to turn off and which one/ones to turn on.
All of which to be run thru a secondary relay. And why not get the 2 circuit one, you can always use it for something , or in case of the first one failing, you always have another.
One more final thought, You have the control of which ones that you want to turn on/off , so this gives you many more possibilities than the 14 on/14 off. And you can always change the event times accordingly by deleting and re write, this sounds pretty good.

I answered my own question, this was on a box stores website, It does repeat.
The ET1100 Series 24-Hour Electronic Time Switches by Intermatic enable a program to be repeated on a daily basis. These time switches provide dependable and uncomplicated performance plus to-the-minute programming for accurate load control and reduced energy costs. All models contain industrial grade AAA alkaline batteries to provide time keeping and automatic carryover for a minimum of three years. The batteries are easy to replace and do not require removing the time switch mechanism or field wiring. Each time switch is housed in a lockable enclosure to protect against vandalism and unauthorized tampering.
•Multi-volt operation
•Up to 28 set points or events (14 on/14 off per channel) can be preset to automatically repeat on a daily basis
•Automatic daylight saving time adjustment (factory enabled)
•Non-volatile EEPROM memory protects programming indefinitely
•Temporary override or permanent manual override available via control buttons