We had a family ride, but behind the Manor. 2807 was on the other train, which we passed at Winchcombe. No new issues logged against 2807 at the end of the day.
Monday 2nd
I was quite surprised to see 2807 out today; I had assumed it would be the Manor. It transpired that the Manor had blown a gasket in one of its injector feed pipes, and as a result was failed.
See this post.
Wednesday 4th
Six of us turned up to make a start on the winter maintenance, but it all went very slowly. We carried out the winterisation work: removed the insides of the injectors; removed the pressure gauges; drained the water from the hydrostatic lubricator sight glasses; emptied the boiler; emptied the tender water; opened all sort of valves (steam heat, tender drain cocks, gauge frame, vacuum relief, …). Loco Dept chaps also cleaned out the grate and the smokebox [that was Peter, that was], and washed down the tender coal space (though they must have missed to rear section, because Brian did that afterwards!).
Bruce and I disconnected the water, vacuum and heating hoses between loco and tender, as we want to separate them to carry out some tasks. Separating the loco & tender was the only exciting thing of the day, really! We were shunted around a bit, before the 04 shunter was able to buffer up sufficiently to release the main drag link. The first attempt simply saw the 04 wheels going round and the little diesel going nowhere! The second attempt was successful, and I pulled the pin out. There are two safety links between loco and tender (in case the main one should break) but these are easy to remove. The main one is tight so that the loco and tender remain close-coupled.
There was one new issue logged (on Monday) by JC:
55: Suspect snifting valves need lapping in - leaking steam?
We had a group discussion about some of the logged issues. Carpo was of the opinion that we
should ignore some of them, as they are not a significant problem. However, he does want us to
change the brake shoes on the loco. New ones are currently being prepared in the machine shop.
Clive [Loco dept] seemed to volunteer his chaps to do this for us! Carpo also commented that the
loco “rides a lot smoother now the compensating beam is the right way round.”
Loco Dept chaps have also been volunteered to: repack the leaky piston gland; paint the rear section of the tender top; and apply bitumen to the coal space.
So, my thanks to Loco Dept, plus our happy band: John G, John T, Gil, Bruce and Brian.
Friday 6th
Popped down to deliver rail chairs & Plusgas; For a moment, I had a flash back to my shed-bunking
days in the 60s:
Saturday 7th
Bruce reports: “When we arrived there was already a gang of people working on Dinmore as well as
4270. It seems that valves are the flavour of the month as that is what they were removing from
both locos. Strangely, we were also intending to remove one of our valves.
We were a bit thin on the ground today, only three of us, so we all worked on removing the LH valve. Gilbert, John T and Bruce started by removing the running boards at each end of the cylinder to give better access to the crosshead and front cover. John then concentrated on removing the valve front cladding followed by the front cover.
At the rear end the cotter was removed and the crosshead split from the valve rod but try as we
might the valve spindle did not want to be parted from the crosshead. We pulled it, we bashed it,
we even tried our splitter but all to no avail, the valve rod that connects the crosshead to the rock
shaft always seemed to get in the way.
At this point we adjourned for lunch to regain our strength and discuss tactics. Perhaps, if we crept
up on it we could take it by surprise and it would come out easily; alas, no. Perhaps if we could get
the valve rod out … but the motion was not in the correct position. Fortunately by moving the
reverser to the full forward position the rod just cleared the motion bracket and came out. Now
with better access the stubborn taper was released, so the crosshead could now be removed
followed by the valve spindle.
We were ably assisted by Tim P and Jamie [steam dept] throughout the day; they provided some of
the brute force as well as moral support.
We also need access to the pistons to measure wear, so John removed the front cladding and Jamie
loosened the cover nuts so that they will be easier to remove next time.
While all this was going on, Chris and Tom [steam dept] replaced the gland packing on the right hand piston rod, it had been reported leaking during the winter gala [Issue 47].”
Roger
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