I've got the boiler to the point of one very small weep at 400 psi, and consensus is that I should fire it up. (Gradually.) I'm to the point of fitting the burner to the boiler. When I took it off, I found that the superheater had no support other than the two steam connections. Do I need more support? (I'm not keen on hanging two kg. of metal from the fittings.) If I do need more support, the easiest way to obtain it is to hang the superheater from a couple of rods through the tubes. I can obtain 1/8" SS rods, or 3/16" TIG rods. Anyone know the melting temp of either? Or should I support it from the bottom, which would be stronger, but more difficult, as it would require figuring out what the dimensions of the supports should be?

And while I'm at it, when I removed the smoke box I found that every tube had a spiral strip of metal. The purpose is to provide more heat to the tubes, and hence to the water, but I'm not sure it helps much, as I understand that most of the heat in the tubes is in the lower 30%. Any comments gratefully received.

You should really get yourself a tube roller. At 125% of your operating pressure you should have no weeper. If your going to run at 500 PSI you should at least hydro to 650 with no weepers. I hydro to 1000 and never drop a speck for 24 hours. Being an old boiler I wouldn’t go much more then the 650 or 700 PSI.

I like to see the supper heater hung from the same frame that holes the boiler. One J bolt or strap hanger on each side with a J hook over the boiler frame.

Rolly

Ian, The spiral metal strips in your fire tubes I have them heard called turbulators. I seen your turbulators when I had worked winterizing your car. They fit well and they do add to the boiler's efficiency. Your systen with the atomizing burner has always fired well, so it is my opinion that you should leave them in. The two fellows that designed your system were close friends with Bessler and they all worked closely together on your car so they you would get the best performance out of your Stanley. Change anything and you will be venturing out into experimenting on your own. Eventually you can do that as soon as you get some miles on your Stanley, but for right now, get to know your new Stanley. From my over 26 years of Stanley steam car experience and having driven over 35,000 steam car miles, I have found that you have nothing to gain by swaging tight a "used" copper fire tube boiler any tighter than at a hydro pressure level above 400 pounds cold. Once it is fired and it gets hotter, the hot copper fire tubes only get tighter. The steel fire tube boilers should be swagged like Rolly said as they only expand at the same rate as the steel boiler tube sheets do. The more that you swage on a copper fire tube, the thinner the copper gets. Eventually the copper fire tube becomes too thin from swaging to seal anymore and it has to be replaced, That is no fun as I have been there and done that.

I feel like an idiot. The burner housing has several slots cut into the top, which fit over the blow-downs and the superheater ends. That's enough to support the superheater, with no pressure on the joints. Duuuh.

On an allied subject, how difficult is it to re-tube a boiler? (With any luck I won't have to, but it seems to me that it shouldn't be all that difficult. Remove the ferrules, drill out the tube ends [carefully] and put in new tubes.) Comments?

You can always re-tube the whole boiler. You can get all the tubes out through the large hole the throttle is piped into. Just one tube can create a very big problem if it doesn’t come out. Some times you can knock out the ferrule with a rod down through the tube from the opposite end. You can drill down part way removing part of the tube in the upper hole, then with a long rod made up with the tube diameter at the top and a rod that passes down through the tube, this keeps the tube from bending. You can hammer out the tube. The problem can be the tube won’t brake lose from the bottom hole and is enlarged just above the bottom tube sheet.
Or when you hammer the top, you bulge the top end of the tube and it won’t come out through the bottom hole. Or it just pops out with no problem.

I still like to see the super heater supported independent of the burner pan.

I don’t like tabulators in a small diameter tube, and short tube boiler. I think there useless. The upper half of the tube does no work. There is no boundary layer, (water against the tube) In a wood or coal fires boiler they soot up so fast your always having to clean them.
In a very long tube boiler where most of the tube is wet on the waterside and the fuel is very clean, like gas or propane they can be of some use.

Rolly