Vigilant II Coal Damaged "Fire Back" Replacement Difficulty.

I have a Vermont Castings Vigilant II 2310 coal stove that somehow the fireback got damaged. Never over-fired the stove, but this wedge shape bent away and deteriorated as you can see in the picture.
Do you all think this is drastically affecting the performance? I primarily burn coal, but in the just cooling off periods now I burn wood and it seems to rip right through it.
Looking at schematics I believe it is the "fire back".
What is the difficulty in replacing the fire back?
I am very handy but have never taken a coal stove apart before.The part is available and only $65 plus shipping. Worth the cost and effort?

That damage appears to be overfiring on wood. Not to despair. Like you said you found a replacement part and the stove is well worth it.

Below is a link on youtube.com that gives you a step by step video on how to take the stove apart. My 2 cents is get your digital camera and take lots of photos while you disassemble it. As they always say... assembly is the reverse of disassembly.

good luck and watch both video's before you pick up a single tool. It'll make life easier for you.

I recommend replacing the fire back asap. The damper above the fire back needs a proper seal for the stove to run in "indirect" mode efficiently. You can take the stove apart simply with a phillips screw driver, first removing the the grates, fire bricks. After a thorough cleaning you will see 2 screws, one in each rear corner below the grates. The 2 sides come out then the back. The stove sort of shows itself for dis-assembly at this point. The air inlet port located on the rear lower left may need to be removed as well with the same screw driver, been a few yrs since my stove was apart. Check the damper for trueness as well. I don't know where you live but another member "mackd" has a Vigll for sale in case you need more parts...it can get expensive, another entire stove may help.

Mike

That picture seems to not show brick on the back.

The damper is tight clearance to remove. I would recommend rounding the shaft edge where the handle attaches with a file to gain a bit more room.

i would definitely put in a new back.

I also suggest that you go ahead and replace the fire back. I replaced mine 2 or 3 years ago for the same reason. I remember being worried about how to get it apart and how difficult it was going to be. I don't remember exactly how long it took, but I was very surprised as to how "easy" it was. The YouTube videos give a pretty good idea of what is involved. After the damper is out of the way, the fire back lifts up out fairly easily.

Good Luck

Thanks everyone.
I have ordered the parts and will give it a go.
Will let you know how I make out.
Fred

Well the parts came in and I went for it. Was actually quite simple. As a matter of fact I think I will take the stove completely apart every year for cleaning from now on.

For the benefit of anyone reading this in the future-
After you remove the screws as seen in the videos posted above that hold the sides in, there is a bolt in the upper right that holds a bracket in place that holds the fireback in place.
There is also a bolt and nut in the bottom left that needs to be removed.
After those are removed the fire back comes right out.

Also in regards to removing the damper, once that bracket in the upper right is removed, removing the damper is quite simple. So even if you are not removing the fireback but need to remove the damper, take that bolt and bracket out and removing the damper is quite simple.

I have attached pictures of the additional bolts that need to be removed.

In the bottom picture the air restrictor plate seems to be installed for burning bit coal. For anthracite that plate should be removed.

franco b wrote:In the bottom picture the air restrictor plate seems to be installed for burning bit coal. For anthracite that plate should be removed.

I second that!