Skipped put of work a little early, mostly to avoid being forced into a double shift since one of the kids called off of the late shift. Called up my logging buddy on the way home, ge didn't answer. Figured I'd get started on inspecting and cleaning the furnace in the house. Got the air shrouds off, and noticed a piece of gasket hanging out of the bottom of the pipe adapter. Yep, stupid thin metal warped. (I think you can see it in the first 2 pics.) (Secind note, for whatever reason the back wall is thinner then the rest of the furnace, not sure if it's because of the secondary air pipe gets hot faster or what.) Just happened my logging buddy called me back while I was looking at it, formulating a plan. I told him what was going on, and what my plan was to fix it. He said, just stop and bring the pipe adapter down. I got some 1/2" boiler plate here, well make a stiffener ring for it, and weld it in. Ran down there, dug this big plate out of one of his trailers and proceeded to cut out a reinforment ring. Quite a pain to get the holes drilled in it, darn near was ready to use the fire wrench. Got that finished up just in time to run home and get the kids off the bus. Then proceeded to drag the welder in the house and burn it on. Did inside and outside of the furnace, and yes i still can wedge most of myself into the furnce. Kinda tight, but i managed. Actually turned out quite well.
New fire bricks showed up. Never used this brand. The web site claimed they are high density/temp fire bricks, but they are very light vs the generic Rutland brand bricks I've been getting locally. Figured for $3.56 each I'll give them a try vs nearly $6.00 each locally.
One of the kittens were fostering decided to be a pain while I was bent over taking the old fire brick out and cleaning the furnace. Took it off my shoulder a few times till it decided it was going to do something else.