Hearthstone Morgan 8470 baffle is baffling me

[kimnach]

I have read the posts from 2009 and 2011, but they offer no further insight than the manual does. The manual makes it sound easy.

We've had our Morgan for about 12yrs and do not use it a lot; however, this year I noticed that the baffle was broken into a number of pieces. Removing these was easy, although I had to dig out the remnants stuck under the L-brackets on each side above the air tubes. I do have a replacement baffle, but how does a 17" wide baffle fit between the front and middle air tubes when the spacing between brackets is roughly 15.5"? And it's too long to fit above the front tube and not hit the top before sliding about half way in. I cannot seem to remove the L-brackets (not mentioned in the manual either) that have pins to go through the baffle.

Is the air tube assembly supposed to drop down (which would be nice if the manual indicated such) when lifting the baffle and relieving the weight from the shelf tabs? I cannot feel any shelf tabs. I am now perplexed by something that is supposedly easy. In this case pictures of the process may help.

thanks in advance.

 

[begreen]

I haven't worked on this stove, but it sounds like unlocking the front shelf tabs is an important step. This is done by lifting the front of the baffle upward so that they rotate up at a 90º angle to release the baffle and get out of the way of the replacement. Perhaps they didn't get unlocked because the baffle came out in pieces?

 

[kimnach]

I haven't worked on this stove, but it sounds like unlocking the front shelf tabs is an important step. This is done by lifting the front of the baffle upward so that they rotate up at a 90º angle to release the baffle and get out of the way of the replacement. Perhaps they didn't get unlocked because the baffle came out in pieces?

Thanks for the response. The problem is that I cannot feel any tabs in the location that the drawing indicates. And I assume that the tabs release the air tube assembly so that it drops down and allows the pins on the L-brackets to be removed?

UPDATE.
I used a boroscope and found that what is probably the shelf clip is actually screwed down. Also, the L-bracket is screwed down. These screws imply that the baffle cannot simply be pushed up and back--the screws have to be removed.

Simple enough, if and only if the air tube assembly can be removed. So now to figure out how to remove the air tube assembly.

Tell me I'm wrong!

 

[begreen]

There seems to be some sort of locking mechanism with the shelf tabs. The manual mentions them unlocking when the baffle is lifted.

 

[kimnach]

There seems to be some sort of locking mechanism with the shelf tabs. The manual mentions them unlocking when the baffle is lifted.
View attachment 337118

The problem is that, if what looks to be the tabs, they are screwed down. There's no moving them. I even tried with a screw driver to pry it upward. I emailed Hearthstone because I really think that either the air tube assembly has to be removed or the insert removed and the baffle be installed above.

 

[begreen]

Yes, the outer part is screwed down there is not enough is visible to see what is the metal tab inside of the shelf tab.