Saturday, May 03, 2014

RETHINKING PROPANE: Dismantling the Hillerange Seaward Stove Part Four

After the finishing clearing out the oven box I returned to the top of the stove where I will use the Coleman Burner Stove for my primary cooking.

 Now that the Hillerange burners and gas valves were removed I need to do a good cleaning of the basin that will contain the burner. I used my one gallon wet/dry vac to remove what I could. But, there was still some greasy and rust spots that needed particular attention:


 I used some white vinegar and baking soda, Simple Green a stainless steel brush and a  DBTech Multi-Purpose Pressurized Steam Cleaner.


The steam clearer really helps to get at the grease and grime that found  it's way into the crevices over two decades of cooking. It also helps to remove rust spots. It also helps to sterilize surfaces. It's a handy thing to have around for a job like this. A small  Stainless Steel Brush also came in handy along with the steam in cleaning some of the stoves rusted metal and stainless steel surface:


I also needed to remove a few things left over on top of the stove. One was the leftover piece of the burner gas manifold bracket that I had to cut using a Dremel tool with a cut off blade:


Using a small vise grip this was easily removed with the screw still firmly attached:


I also used the Dremel Tool with a cutoff blade to cut off the stainless steel feed tubes that previously fed the pilot light and oven burner:



Here is the before view afterI removed the gas manifold, burners and gas valves but, had not yet cleaned things up. You can see some of the  the rust where the iron burner brackets were screwed into the stainless steel surface and the gas feed tubes on the right :


Here is the after photo:


That's much better. I can now put the Coleman burner in it's proper place on top of the cleaned stove top. I'm pretty happy with the transformation. I've created more storage for my pots and pans in the oven box. Plus, I still have a well gimbaled burner with which to cook on :


So one project is out of the way. Next I'll move on to the next project which is  remove the hot water heater as I continue to rethink propane on board and how I use it.