Better late than never with this update. On March 23 and 24 a few of us continued the work on the #18. The big jobs for the weekend were removing the stack to replace the crumbling gasket underneath and sand blasting many miscellaneous large and small items removed from the #18.
It ended up being quite a job to remove the old bolts and lay down the stack. With some heat and persuasion we got them out, then made a new gasket and reinstalled the stack.
The sandblasting was done over at the museum. A large number of things were blasted, including the drivers, steam and sand dome parts, the boiler jacket sheet metal, storage and tool boxes, ect.
As soon as they were blasted they were painted with a primer to protect them. Some interesting dates were found on the drivers and tires. The tires had a date of 2-14-45, and the driver centers had 2-17-1911.
We also lapped most of the remaining valves, leaving about 4 more to go. We also removed and cleaned the firing valve. The burner was removed at this time as well. It was media blasted at Dave’s house and was inspected.
On Sunday we took delivery of the new cylinder head. This new cast iron head will replace the old home made one on the right side of the engine.
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