Well, I finally pulled engine out of my Tiger last weekend
an found myself faced with the usual caked on layers on grundge
to deal with. I figured this might be a good time to pull out
the old Clayton Steam'n Demon cleaner and do a number on the
whole chassis before I start on it with the sandblaster. Well
the Demon was under a tarp burried beneth a few years worth of
old car and house parts but in short order with the help of my
friend Steve we had it out and were trying to remember the pre-
fire checklist in order to get the thing going. It had been quite
a while since last we used the steam'n demon. Steve reminded me
that the last user (an old girlfriend of his) had the hose blow off
the outlet of the demon while she was straddling said outlet.
I remember that she made a funny noise and did a little dance but
fortunately she was unscathed. Steve started to look a little nervous
as I primed the fuel bowl and flipped on the switch. The demon
started chugging away and when we got the air fuel ratio correct
it started in with its customary little dance across the pavement that
it always does when the outlet pressure starts to build up. Soon
we had a merry little geyser of steam coming from the nozzel and
we were in business. The demon started to get loud (excessive
pressure?) and Steve went to check the pressure gauge to make sure
we were not on the verge of a boiler explosion. "How come we have
got got lots of steam at the nozzel but 0 PSI on the gauge?" asked
Steve. I wiped some of the dirt from the meter face and took a
look, "Oh shXX, it's not reading zero it's pegged on the back
side of the neddle stop above the 300 PSI mark!", said I. I turned off
the fuel and we both ran like hell. We waited for the damn(ed)
thing to cool down a bit and we crept back to get another look
at the pressure gauge, the needle was still hard agains the back
side of the stop. We decided that the needle must have somehow
jumped the peg when we were moving it and we gently lifted the needle
over the stop and it sprang up to 175 PSI. Since the demon was still
spitting steam we figured this was about right so we continued to
clean. A little while late the steam'n demon ran out of kerosene
and we decided to call it quits for the night. Steve noticed that
after the thing had completely cooled off the pressure gauge still
indicated 175 PSI! Again we removed the meter face to find that
the neddle was stuck hard at 175 PSI and probably would be so for
eternity. Before I use the demon again I think it needs a little
work. Maybe I should just rent a pressure washer, they work
better anyway and they must be a whole lot safer. I will try not
to rent one with the word demon in its name.
Frank Marrone at marrone@optilink.dsccc.com
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