Monday 19 February 2018

Maintenance Update (stripes, bushes, dust, spacers)

Wednesday 14th
Not many people about today (including Bruce & myself!). John T relayed much of the happenings; Gilbert’s camera produced some photos, and Graham was the one who took them!

John G painted white diagonal stripes on the back of the gauge frame. These look distorted through the water in the glass, which helps see the water level in the boiler. Later he appeared to be cleaning the tender. Fred also joined in cleaning the tender.


Colin, the chap from Riley’s, who came to check out our boiler before quoting for the Heavy General Overhaul, mentioned that the front tube plate needed descaling. So, Graham and Alex tackled that (inside the smokebox - not sure exactly what they got up to) and hoovered it out afterwards.

Most of the gang appeared to be involved in fitting the bushes into the coupling rods. I gather that once pressed in, it must have been squeezed a bit, and the old pin won’t fit. But the coupling rod bearings have not yet been delivered.


Pressing in the first gradient pin bush. Testing the fit of the gradient pin afterwards.

Gradient pin bushes in middle & front rods. Gil & John refitted the rearmost coupling rod.


Saturday 17th
Gil had had a new dust cover cast to replace the broken one. David spent nearly all day making it fit! Even when he made a template to work out where the holes are to go, it took an age to get them right. In future, it would be more sensible to have them made out of aluminium alloy rather than cast iron.


The re-metalled bushes arrived. Bruce and David adjusted the leading bush, which was a few thou proud.


Graham assisted in press-fitting the bushes. Then Gil had to carefully apply some emery, to get the pins to fit. The bushes were then secured into the rods.


David had brought two spacers (brass discs) because where one of the rods fits into a fork on the adjacent rod, there is too much side-play. These spacers will overcome the problem in the short term.


Rob went round all 8 of the mudhole doors, emerying the internal faces to ensure a good fit for the gaskets.

Fred joined us for lunch; he and Graham cleaned and painted the water feed pipes beneath the running boards, where the paint had flaked off. We had probably used Deproma paint originally, but the water is rather hot, so they used heat-resistant paint this time!

John T began with needle-gunning rail chairs until an opportunity arose … then moved on to cutting felts for the bushes. These are now soaking in oil prior to being fitted. John also assisted in lining up the bushes’ securing holes to those in the rods, and in the pressing-in of the two new bushes.

Bruce cleaned the inner parts of the injectors and fitted them all back in place.

Stuart emailed: “I just found this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6KJ6nnxxoY
It is a 50 minute compilation of 2807 during its 3 months stay at Llangollen.”

[A little reminder, the content of external web sites linked to from this blog is not the responsibility of CSP Ltd.]

Roger

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