Sunday 24 January 2016

Maintenance Update (swage, reaming, rock)

Tuesday 19th
I popped down for a while to complete the four boot scrapers.

Wednesday 20th
Bruce brought in the piece of test pipe and the gadget he made to swage the end.  The new pipe has a much thicker wall than the original (top in the photo) so Bruce did two tests - one to swage out the pipe as is; and then he drilled out the other end to the same wall thickness as the old pipe before swaging that.  Needless to say, the latter was the easier to do!  However, The Oracle was not happy with the drilled out idea.  Bruce decided to make a Mk II (shiny silver) piece to make the opening out easier to do.


Bruce's other job for the day was to finish off the sides of the newly machines underkeep such that it slides smoothly in the axle box guide.  Basically, it was taking off the high spots.  Photo shows it in place beneath the axlebox.  We need the second one doing before we can fit the wheelset back in the pony.


Gil cleaned up the face of the RHS rocking shaft cradle - there appeared to be some minor high spots around the bolt holes.  Then he spent the rest of the day reaming out the one fixing bolt hole into which we are using a fitted bolt (to try to stop the unit from moving when the loco is in motion).  We don't have time to do all four bolts at the moment.


I removed the top cover of the LHS rocking shaft and inspected the cover.  With Gil watching carefully, I waggled the reverser to & fro to see what sort of movement there was in the brass bearings.  They only seemed to move up & down (caused by the lack of top cover plus the direction of force from the intermediate valve rod).  Dixie cleaned up the nuts, bolts and stud; I ran a flat file over the surfaces of the top piece and bottom piece to check for high spots, then Dixie and I reassembled it.  There had been no observed issue with this side in service, and nothing visibly amiss now.

Dixie has already extracted the studs from the RHS and cleaned those, which is why he was into cleaning the threads on that side .. and subsequently on my side.

John G was quite keen on painting the entire pony truck, but I persuaded him that the front buffer beam is more visible and in need of touching up.. John had a go at cleaning the paintwork but then decided that it really needed touching up .. which he did.

For a while, I had been 'bugged' by the fact that our AWS unit in the cab (kindly bought & donated by John G) is eye-catching, but not connected to anything.  We would like to have (had time to) fit some pipework to make it appear to be fully connected.  I had an inkling that the original pipework is on the ground beneath our TPO.  John had a look; then went looking at other locos, but found that no two are the same (surprise, surprise!).  So, he's going to look at the photos of 2807 in Barry to see if there is one showing the position of the pipes.

Thursday 21st
Gil & Geof went to Buckfastleigh (via Torquay to deliver a boot scraper) to collect the pony wheels.  Rob Le C had emailed:
"Hi Gilbert,
There is good news and bad, the good news is they are ready for collection unfortunately they went a bit over budget as the tyre width was way out of specification at over 6” so we have had to machine the front of the tyres as well as profile them therefore the final cost is £720.00
Hope this is ok".

They arrived back at Todders circa 5.20 pm, where Carpo and I were ready and waiting!  We unloaded the wheels (in the dark); packed up, and G&G drove the truck back to Winchcombe station yard.


Saturday 23rd
Lots of people here today (seven), all beavering away at something … apart from me!

John T cut the straps to width, for fitting beneath the pony underkeeps (i.e. to keep them up!).  David has taken them home to trim up the edge.


Later, John joined the team fitting the valve cover back on the RHS.


In the dark on Thursday, it was a 50-50 chance that the pony wheels were the right way round on the track … they weren't!  Adey S [Loco Dept] used the fork lift truck to turn them round for us.  Brian then cleaned up the pony wheels.  SDR had coated them with waxoil, which Brian removed.  He also removed flaking bits of paint from spokes and hubs; then he applied a primer to the outer face of tyres and the hub, ready for painting black next time.


Interestingly, the wheels have things stamped on them: 90T 75DG and PA4027.  The latter is probably a part number, and the former may be 70 tons pressure required to fit wheels to axle.  What's the 75DG, then?

Alistair measured the coupling rods again, as Gilbert had brought a diagram with dimensions on that were legible.  Alistair's measurements confirmed that there is too much play, and our rods are not quite (!) to diagram.  JC advised us to re-bush the inner rod end when we have time - not urgent.  Alistair went on to assist with the valve cover (it is a shade heavy and awkward to fit into place).  Finally, he assisted Bruce, fitting the little cross-head thingy for the RHS valve rod to fit in to.

Bruce began by fettling the underkeeps to ensure that their bottoms were not proud of the axlebox itself.  The straps must not be tight enough to force the underkeep to press upwards onto the axle, but must not be loose enough to let it waggle about.  There is also the need to make the "hole" the same size as the axle.


Later in the day, Bruce moved on to the RHS valve; in particular fitting new packing in the gland.

David spent much of the day with Gilbert reaming out the one hole for the rocking shaft bracket.  David had skimmed a shade from the rocking shaft cover, and these and their brasses now fit tightly together.  We decided to get four new bolts made for this bracket, such that in due course it will have fully-fitted bolts to ensure that it cannot move at all.  David finally made a jig for the loco-to-tender steam heating connection.  New connectors are being delivered (of a diameter that suits BR hoses) next time, and David will cut & weld the pipework to fit these.


I did little things, to little effect!  The electrical conduits on GWR locos for connecting the ATC shoe to the battery box and in-cab equipment seem to vary from one to another.  Gil thought there might be some of our conduit in the siphon, so I zoomed off to Winchcombe for a search.  There is one piece, about 10 ft long!  However, it gave me a chance to say "Hello" to Fred and Bill, who were busy painting pieces of wood inside the siphon.  Fred introduced me to Horace and Doris, the resident robins, who were generally keeping an eye on what Fred & Bill were up to!  Unfortunately, I hadn't taken my camera along …

David Moore writes:
" Fancy a private reg for your car?

‘2807 JB’ is being auctioned on-line by the DVLA but the reserve is £1500! Pass on if you think anyone else interested.

Check out www.dvlaauction.co.uk to view."


Roger

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