Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Rog,

That's a nice tip to use super glue, I don't think I would have tried that: thinking the glue would not stick / hold on the metal.  Thank you!

As I dove deeper into the engine I really started to think it was going to be a "display only" engine.  When I took the bottom off and the iron cover for heater blanket was missing two nuts my stomach dropped.  Then I discovered the leak and that the smash to the secondary tank was a lot worse (with it all together it doesn't look so bad).  I felt like I was rolling down hill real fast.  Likely in my younger years I would have thrown the thing against the wall but instead I took a big breath and walked away for a bit to think / chill.  After about 30 minutes I prep'ed the secondary tank and got out my sweating pipe stuff to sort out that leak.  Put her back together and made that video that I shared a few posts back.  Can't really put into words how happy I was that she ran.  I also think getting all the other Empires and working on them prepared me for this B42! :-)

I now have flushed both tanks a few times and disassembled the sight glasses to clean them - I think I finally got them cleaned and no more floaties seen in the sight glasses.  The secondary tank was a mess of brown stuff and I am now thinking perhaps a previous owner put in sealant (say like you put in a radiator to temporally stop a leak).

Here is a close up photo how that secondary tank's sight glass looked - I don't ever recall a Empire's sight glass so gummy/brown.

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