Saturday update

Frank writes...

I was out at IRM on Saturday instead of Sunday this weekend. It was a beautiful day, sunny with a high around 60 degrees. When I first arrived, I met up with Richard and picked up some materials for the next historical article. Stay tuned for that!

Most of the afternoon I was working on the 18. I cut a hole in the last ceiling panel for the ventilator register, then lifted it into place and spent a while screwing the lap strips into place. I also got the first of the four ventilator registers installed before I ran out of time. It's not perfect, and eventually we will need to replace this three-section panel with a single piece, but for the time being the ceiling is closed up and looks reasonably good.

I also continued with Bondo application on the outside of the car. Here we see the hole over the back bumper, which is finally closed up. Next time I can sand this smooth and maybe prime it, after which the entire back end of the car will be ready for grey paint.

After dinner, new volunteer Nathan fired up the newly-operational-again small forklift and brought the 36's air compressor from the parking lot, where it had been sitting for the past week, into the "lean-three."

The initial plan was just to get it indoors, out of the weather, but the insatiable curiosity of the assembled volunteers was too much and disassembly to check for the source of the knock began. Here, the top cover and valve assembly have been removed, plus the gear case cover to allow the pump to be moved by hand. This work was done by Nathan and Mikey with help from Dave, Greg, and Zach.

Some lateral play was found, and when the bearing cap at the end of the pump was removed, there was some scoring and loose bits of babbitt in there. So that's not ideal. More work will be needed to bring this pump up to snuff, and get the 36 back in service, but in general the pump seems like it's generally in good shape. Many thanks to everyone for working on this!