I'm still plugging away at this thing, but almost done. Wife siliconed most of the exterior seams for me. She's a lot better at that stuff. I added the blow gun, trimmed the window seal a bit since the retainer was getting stuck on it, and came up with a way to secure the ball valve.
There was nothing wrong with the bulkhead, but there was a lot of weight hanging off to one side which made all of the plumbing want to move around and loosen the bulk head jam nut. Eventually it would screw up the hole on the cabinet, cause a leak, and I would forever be tip-toeing around that ball valve so that I don't have to retighten connections all the time. No thanks. My orphan hardware and home electrical stashes saved the day.
"That ain't going nowhere"
I love when I go to my hardware stash to look for nuts that will stack up and end up finding a spacer that's already the perfect height.
It's like fate actually wants my shit to work.
At this point, I think I just need to vacuum all the metal and caulk shavings out of the hopper, fill it with media, and cross my fingers, although I'm also expecting to need to redo my suction hose. I watched a video on how the air lock ball valve is supposed to be set. Apparently the clear reinforced tubing included in the ebay kits was chosen methodically. When setting the ball valve, you hold the trigger, and watch how much media flows through the tube. The more the better obviously, but I assume it will be too difficult to notice an immediate difference just by blasting something. Plus, you can't see through the window and set the valve at the same time unless you're Stretch Armstrong. I'm also slightly worried about drawing media through the elbows I used, but at least they sweep. ?ā
I'm hovering right around the "fuck-it" level with this thing. For some reason, I'm still having fun working on it, but I also realize that I've wasted a couple weeks that could have been used prepping the corroded GN parts via much more miserable methods.
