Bruce tackled issue 14 (flange lubricator not contacting wheel). Paraphrasing Bruce’s comment, ‘It took less time to insert a new graphite block than it did for the driver to log this issue!’
Bruce had dug out some new top clack castings from our spares pile. They needed quite a lot of work doing on them to bring them up to spec, apparently. So, Bruce machined the parts at home and on Wednesday replaced the existing top clacks with these new ones. [Photo depicts path of water from injector up to the top clacks (red arrow)]
John G got stuck into boot scraper work. He noticed that the F&W had none left to sell, so re-stocked them with three more.
Gil climbed into the waterproof gear and cleaned some of the underneath of the loco. Bearing in mind the ambient temperature (~25°C) that was brave of him! Thereafter, he played with the hydrostatic lubricator. There was a problem with a rubber seal and also the regulator tap needed re-packing.
A Loco Dept chap cleaned the running boards during the morning, but then had to do it again after lunch … this is a problem of the shed being both a running shed and a restoration shed, methinks!
Saturday 21st
David tackled issue 15. He changed the glass and rubbers in the gauge frame, and replaced the Klinger seal in the drain tap. It appears that there are two types of Klinger sleeve - one with oval eyelets and one with round eyelets. Some of the eyelets are loose, and David thinks one was actually missing from the sleeve in our gauge frame drain tap.
David later adjusted the ejector handle to make it vertical when in the “off” position. It is normal practice to have handles vertically aligned when “off” (apart from said gauge frame drain tap!). However, they are mostly on taper shanks and after having a few hefty bashes by the crew, tend to slip round a little.
Finally, David cleaned the running board yet again! [Photo: just look at the crap that settled on our loco today!]
Bruce was measuring the blow-down valve pipe. We plan to fit a ‘standard’ fire-hose connector to make it an easy and speedy method of filling the boiler. Needless to say, the pipe and the hose connector have different diameters! The pipe is quite low to the ground, too, because it would normally discharge steam into a pit. So, the pipe will need shortening.
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| Blow-down valve pipe |
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| fire-hose connector |
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| diagram of fixing hose connector to pipe |
Bruce, John T, Rob and I turned to boot scraper production, because the cafes had sold 7 during the week, so we need to build up stocks once again. Bruce was on painting; John angle-grinding, wirebrushing and bolt cutting; Rob manned the needlegun; and I was painting the lettering and fitting brushes. The production line had 9 black bottoms; 4 primed tops, plus 6 finished articles. P-Way delivered us a pile more rail chairs, fortunately.
All issues are now resolved apart from the pin-hole in the injector steam pipe, which we shall tackle in due course. It is not a serious leak, and the pipe is “fun” to remove, and even more fun to align the top & bottom pieces either side of the leaking sleeve!
Sunday: F&W sold 4 more boot scrapers! I popped down to restock both cafes (once again). I also applied a top coat to the four that Bruce primed on Saturday.
Roger
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