New to me Fireview 205 may be too much restoration for me

[biopete]

Hi All. I got a Fireview 205 from the original owner nearby in Arivaca, AZ. I found Todd's rebuild thread here researching what stove i should buy and then I saw on marketplace there were two fireview 205s here at the same time and I got one and the other one got away. Woodstock looked it up and said it was sold Feb 2009 and shipped to Arivaca, AZ. He was originally asking $1200 for it but said he would take half so it seemed good. $600 for a stove that wasn't used much here in AZ.
The other one that got away the person was asking $2000 for . It may have been a lot newer or something. Or it seems a little trendy here to ask twice as much than you will take on marketplace. I've seen that a lot. I bought a bike marked down from 175.00 ultimately for 65.00 . Lol.

My stove was rusty but I thought it just needed a little cleanup work and paint job. I have been trying to take it apart to paint and make operational and replacing gaskets and such. All in all the stone is in great shape. He said it got rained on but I didn't really probe much because how much rain could it get here in AZ ? Avg is 18 in a year, lol.

It must have just rained down his chimney pipe or something . Every bolt I have tried to remove has broke or stripped lol. My plan was to take the the combuster pan out and clean it up, inpsect it from there. Or at least get the cover off and peak inside https://www.woodstove.com/image/catalog/205 Fireview /Instructions/Old-Format-Instructions/205-comb-pan-preasssembled.pdf The 4 flat head bolts holding the cover on won't budge though. Any ideas there? I got a flat head socket and impact and still no luck.

What do you all think? Does it take a lot to get. an old stove in this shape back up to snuff? I will see what woodstock thinks as I emailed some pics and they said they would look and advise what I need. Here are some pics . Maybe i just need to replace the gaskets, get a few new parts and paint it and she should be good. That would be great. Otherwise anyone interested in taking this off my hands or I will just It won't take much arm twisting

I'm going to call Woodstock tomorrow. They are so nice. I am really tempted to buy a new one and just focus on the hearth myself and installing the chimney as that has to all get done. After doing all that myself I will deserve a beautiful new stove that will just work and the wife will too. That would be much better than installing this 500lb behemoth and it smokes and doesn't work after all that. Plus It would be fun to pull her leg and pretend I rebuilt the old stove like new too. He hee.