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Wednesday January 10th 2007
Loco lifted for wheel removal.
The loco has been carefully lifted and placed on sleeper stacks 18" off the ground. This will give enough clearance for the driving wheels to be dropped and rolled out of the rear of the loco. Our excellent CCLR wheel drop is used to slowly lower the wheelsets, one at a time, from the frame. The third picture shows all the wheels removed and rolled out to the rear ready for cleaning and checking.
Wednesday January 17th 2007
Axle boxes checked and ashpan removed.
The axle boxes have now been stripped and cleaned and measured for wear prior to machinig.
The old ashpan has been removed and has been found to be in pretty poor condition so it will be replaced with a new one.
Saturday February 3rd 2007
Hornguides removed.
The hornguides have all now been removed from the frames and were found to be badly worn as can be seen in photo 2. The worn areas on the inside edges are built up with weld and then machined back to size.
Saturday February 24th 2007
Wheelsets being machined
Wishing to avoid the process of pressing off the outside cranks and removing the crank pins, It was decided to send the wheel sets to a local engineering company with large enough machines to tackle the job as complete assemblies. The first photo shows the drive axle just about to be removed from their two foot swing lathe after completion of the treads. The second photo shows a crank pin being machined in a large horizontal boring machine.
Wednesday February 28th 2007
Horn guides finish machining and fitting
The horn guides were finished to size and fitted to the frames.
Wednesday April 11th 2007
Ash pan completed
The new ash pan is finished and ready for fiting to the loco. Dampers have been added to each side and will be operated by levers in the cab.
Tender top removed and water tank cleaned ready for coating.
A new stainless steel top plate complete with two 'mushroom' air vents was fitted together with modifications to the coal rails and new fire iron brackets.
Front end removed and ready for fabrication of new components.
27th December 2003.
Split smoke box under construction and new 2" dia. blast pipe installed.
3rd January 2004
New header fitted to boiler front tube plate and steam pipes fabricated and fitted.
14th January 2004
Smoke box top in place and new Kordina and mixing chamber fitted.
The large pipe passing from the right hand side and up into the front of the mixing chamber, is the exhaust from the steam driven air pump.
30th January 2004
The blast arrangements are all finished and only require final re-assembly of the smoke box.
The engine has been back in service since Easter 2005 and I can report that the modification has been great a success. Not only has steaming been improved but both coal and water consumption have been reduced. Firing techniques have needed to be modified as she now runs with a very thin fire. Use of the steam blower has been drastically reduced and valve cut-off can now be used to far more effect.
The only negative is the reduced exhaust 'bark' when working hard, but thats a small price to pay.
25th February 2004.
New slide valves are made and ready to fit (old on left and new on right) following an incident in 2003 when one of the old ones broke in half and received a temporary repair.
New piston rings are also being fitted and this picture shows how worn the old ones were (old on the left new on the right)
28th February 2004.
Cylinders and motion all rebuilt. Here we see the valve timing being set.
The original idea was to build and fit a steam operated bell ringer as fitted to many US locomotives, however, the offer of a ready made air operated unit that would do the job, couldn't be resisted. The whole job took a couple of hours and we now have a variable speed automatic bell ringer that is operated from the loco air system via a cab mounted valve.
The main job this winter was the total replacement of the regulator assembly.
Frequent problems with leaking through of the slide valve type regulator led to it's total replacement by a stainless rotary valve with replaceable PTFE packing. This meant the complete removal of the old push - pull handle and packing box on the boiler back head and its replacement with a new rotary mechanism and gland. The new valve is still mounted up in the steam turret as per the old one.
New regulator finished and awaiting replacement of steam dome.
New suspension
The rubber block type suspension has now been replaced with springs. Frames and axle boxes were modified to accept four coil springs per box (two large springs each with a smaller dia. spring inside). Both pony trucks have also been rebuilt, modified and fitted with adjustable height slipper blocks to allow weight distribution adjustment.
Rubber suspension blocks removed from rear axle but still in place over center axle.
First springs in place on rear axle.
Motion re-bush.
While the motion was off, a number of worn bushes have been replaced.
© Roger Loxley 2002.