The cylinder assembly was next to come apart. If you don't have the Power Custom cylinder rod tool yet I highly recommend getting one. The yoke barrel was covered with a sticky grey sludge that was even nastier than the trigger group channel. Ick. More to come on that later.
Next up was the front sight blade. I've gotten into the habit of buying parts kits instead of individual parts because I never know what I might need. This time there was an extra bonus in that I got to practice removing the front sight blade from the parts kit barrel before I started working on the one that mattered.
The sight pin was visible but flush with the side of both barrels. Not wanting to mar the sight rib with an errant strike, I used the point of my smallest roll pin punch to move the pin just a bit below the surface and then switched to a regular punch that matched the pin size. Tap tap tap and out it came. The replacement sight blade had rusted in place and would require cleaning prior to installation. That's ok though because it was otherwise intact. The sight pin on the project gun came out just as easily using the same method.
I realized as I was cleaning out the front sight channel that there really wasn't much left on the frame. The front ejector rod plunger, the firing pin, and the rear sight were all that was left. What the heck. There were some rust scabs on the side of the frame. Let's do this as close to "right" as we can get.
The rear sight came off so easily it was surprising. Remove the screw, tilt the sight up, take out the rear spring with a pair of needle nose pliers, then push the pin out. There was no hammer involved. With the tension removed the pin just slid out to the side and the rear sight was off. Again, lots of nasty stuff under the rear sight. The sight pieces from both guns went into an empty bullet box with a lid so that they wouldn't evaporate on the bench.
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