Sisyphean

[David]

The red loco has been idle most of this year, sitting under one of the sheds at the club. I found the cylinders had rusted up a couple of months ago and we managed to ease that right without breaking anything as far as I can tell. On it's only other run this year the tender draw bar nearly fell off too, all the bolts holding it to the side frames had worked loose and most had dropped out! Luckily I noticed before leaving the steaming bay.

I gave it a run last weekend and it was a pretty normal afternoon.

1. Having been dragged around a bit to get it out of the way, the tender had lost one of its fittings that connect to the loco - these just push into the water hoses. My son found a stick of just the correct diameter to plug the hose but we were one injector down before we started!

2. It was raising pressure pretty well so I went to get a drink. I came back to hear it blowing the whistle continuously and the whistle valve wouldn't shut. So I let the steam out and put a blanking plug in there.

3. The bottom of a w-iron on the riding truck got snagged on something at some time and has broken off. Luckily the axlebox is sitting above the break but I still need to fix it!

4. It clinkered right up after a couple of hours. I'm willing to take the blame for that, I haven't figured out how to fire with the various varieties of coal we're using. It ran fine until that point although I suspect I was using too much blower.


It was easy enough to make a new fitting and nut for the tender water hose, although I'd have preferred not to have to. The whistle valve was just furred up inside so the pin was stuck. I gave it a clean and it should work ok next time - the ball and spring seemed fine.

So, business as usual! I really don't know why I can't fix this loco.

[David]

After another 'usual' afternoon with the red loco I'm trying something different to improve the steaming.

Following the advice of a couple of mates at the track I did the 1:3 & 1:6 cone checks and the 1:3 looked to me like it was wider than the bottom of the petticoat. I took the blastpipe nozzle out and drilled and threaded it so I can try some variations. First up I've made one slightly smaller (5.4 vs 5.6 mm) which I think is closer to the 1:7 cylinder ratio, assuming that's meant to be dia and not area! The new nozzle is also a few mm higher, being a screwed in fitting. I hope this gets all the steam into the chimney.

I checked the bottom of the smokebox for leaks by filling it with water and leaving it there. No water dripped out so I don't think there were any leaks causing trouble.

Tonight I've started addressing another irritant, which is not being able to easily oil the eccentric straps. This is simple if you remove a side tank.

The side tanks are held on with a screw in their rear from the cab, and a screw through the running board with a nut underneath. This bottom screw makes it difficult to take the tank off and put it back on because it wasn't captured in any way so you also had to take the tank top off to hold it, while using a spanner to undo the nut underneath.

I opened out the hole in the footplate so a thin nut securing the screw to the tank itself could fit in there and made a knurled nut with a flat bigger than the hole in the running board to make it easy to get on and off. Only one side done but it was quick enough so I'll do both.

Even ignoring the easier oiling, being able to get the tanks on and off a lot more easily is good for maintenance.

[David]

A couple of changes to the lubricator that I hope will make it easier to use.

I've added an extra bush to the top to try and make it easier to fill. The new bush and plug are the same depth as the existing one in case there's an important air gap or cushion at the top that needs to be maintained. With this extra opening the air won't be trying to come out the same opening the oil is going into.

The drain used to be a simple plug in the bottom, which is high under the running board and over the cylinder casting. I've made a new drain with a pipe and a plug that is easier to reach.

[David]

I flipped the loco on its side today to clean the firebox. This is as good as I could get it.




After that I noticed one of the brackets for the cylinder drains was hanging loose and thought I screw had come out, but it had sheared off. A couple of years ago my son was driving and got distracted by another family member, and fell off the riding truck. The loco took off, and someone at the club decided to heroically dive for the loco and pull it off the track. That caused a lot of damage, and I'm pretty annoyed because there was nothing else on the track at the time, or not close enough the loco wouldn't have wound down on its own. You can see the 6mm steel buffer plate was badly bent, and various other pieces were damaged too.

So I drilled out the broken screw and made the two missing links to get the cylinder drains connected again.

In this photo you can see the unusual method of securing the valve chest covers. Notice there are no studs and the covers are forced apart by the inlet manifold and a jack screw. Seems to work ok but I need to think a bit every time I take it apart.




Finally, I noticed something interesting on the slip eccentric stop collars. The pins have worn into the stop collars. I don't know if this happened during one of a various violent sudden stops the loco has had (like the one described above), or just worn in over time. I did the valve timing fairly recently in terms of running time so I think I would have accounted for this wear even though I didn't know about it at the time.

[millman]

Looks like it is a brass pin and it seems to be bent or is that an optical illusion?

[David]

It could be bent. I didn't notice when it was on it's side. I would not be surprised if it was bent at some point, this loco has had some pretty bad knocks and sharp stops. I also didn't take notice of what it was made from - I didn't build these bits. The wear marks in the stop collars are not even - they're more like a cone - so that might be a clue. I'm sure the eccentrics have shifted around the axles in one of these jarring stops because the beat is not even, but it's not so bad it needs fixing. I have adjusted the valve timing to suit where the eccentrics are so it runs ok, just the beat is a bit off.

I'm impressed these bits have survived to be honest. They must have been well built. I'm sure the loco ran well when it was new, and the machining on the bits I did get is all good. It's just suffered badly since, including being my learning experience. Those eccentric straps and valve rods are some of the first things I made over 10 years ago and you can tell. It was a bit weird that it had lost it's eccentric straps and valve rods before I got it!

I live in hope I can get this loco sorted, but I never seem to get there.

[millman]

If the eccentrics are just held to the axles by grub screws they may well have slipped, that would most probably account for it being a bit off beat, we all have to learn on something, my learning loco was a kit built Polly 2 0-4-0 tender loco, looking back I cringe at some of the things I done to it, it is now in line to be totally stripped this winter and rebuilt with new valve gear, expansion links are totally shot, so are all valve gear pins etc, the boiler inspectors can see the boiler totally out of the frames and then a couple of coats of paint and hopefully back on the track next spring. Trouble is that life gets in the way and what you think will only take a week ends up taking a couple of months.

[racinjason]

David,
are you going to bring on down on Saturday for the running day.
Cheers Jason.

[David]

If it's not raining I'll bring it for a test.

[David]

I think it steamed better, but whether that was due to the firebox cleaning or the front end changes won't be known until it's had a few more runs. At least today when it was charging up a hill it was making steam, which it didn't really do last month. It was easier to keep the water level up due to the extra steam pressure.

[mugbuilder]

It seemed to be going very well to me. Ran smoothly and plenty of steam.

[David]

Another typical day. After the loco ran well last time I thought I'd do it a favour and put it's right hand side water tap back on. This did not go to plan:

1. The body of the tap was distorted so couldn't be used.
2. I had made a replacement, but it wasn't very good so I decided I'd make another one.
3. I had brass hex in every size other than the one I wanted. I couldn't be ar*sed making it from bigger and whittling it down.

So the long term bodge pipe that goes from the connection on the drag beam directly to the injector went back on.

In all this I took the tap off the other side to figure out what the bits were and where they went so I had to put that back on too.

At a loss I then decided to try and straighten the buffer beam. All I managed to do was belt the TOP of the beam out of place, shearing the two screws holding the running board down because I'd neglected to remove them before starting on this fools errand. So now the buffer beam is worse than before.

And I have no idea what I've done to the frame alignment.

I was so frustrated I nearly pushed the loco off the bench.

My second thought was to tear the damned thing to bits and fix everything that bugs me about it - it's an extensive list. But it's a running day this weekend so I'll give it one more run.

I cannot see how to straighten the buffer beam, and it upsets me every time I see it. I'm thinking I'll dismantle the loco down to the frames, cut the beam off (it's welded to the frames as per design) and put a new one on, bolting it to the frames with angle this time. There is another welded stretcher at the front, at the bottom of the frames, so there is still some strength there. Luckily it is a simple loco so dismantling it isn't as drastic as it sounds.

But if I start down that road I'd say it will take me a couple of years to get it back on the road at the pace I work, so I probably need a better plan.

So today was quite a bad net loss, after an entire afternoon spent on it.

[steamer5]

Hi David,
I hope you had a couple of those soothing ales that Jim tells us about, It sounds like you deserve it!

Cheers Kerrin

[David]

Can't afford them anymore! That's quite a problem at the moment - I can't buy anything and while I have an extravagant workshop I have little material to make anything with.

I have a number of cunning plans, but I expect the enthusiasm and execution won't be sufficient. The shame of it is that this loco is perfect for experimenting with ideas because it's so basic. But I'm so sick of working on it I want to build something new, and my club (and me) are quite scale loco focused so working on a freelance thing is hard to raise excitement for.

I need a robust scale outline loco I can use for running days so I can work on this one for an extended period! Why is the answer, for all of us, 'another loco'?!?

[David]

A new day, a new opportunity to stuff up! I decided I'd try and make a go of new water tap body. I had to solder two pipes into it - inlet and outlet obv. This is a tricky operation because the tap body is thin so it's virtually impossible (for me) to get the pipe into *but not through* the body where it will interfere with the round bit that goes inside. Luckily I'd bought some riffler files a few years ago and about an hour later the bits went together. Now, spot the deliberate mistake.




I made a virtue of this by cutting off the rather battered end where the union before soldering a new one on. Luckily the pipe was long enough to handle this.

Then for the outlet pipe I only had thick walled copper tube so I'm hoping it has enough cross section to feed the injector. I'll take the straight through pipe with me in case this tap repair doesn't work.

[David]

'Soemthing' went wrong last time I ran this loco, it wouldn't steam again despite steaming well the month before. Now the mogul is essentially finished I feel I can work on this one properly so it's undergoing a rebuild. The only parts I plan on keeping are the frames, cylinders/valves/steam chests, boiler, bodywork, and perhaps the smokebox.

The boiler has been sitting in phosphoric acid for about a month now. I'll just leave it there. The pipework has been in there a few weeks too.

I've made a new exhaust manifold which takes the passages up from 3/8" to 1/2" and removes a sharp 90deg bend as it comes off each cylinder casting by using plumbing fittings. This was a well known modification to the design but this loco was made so early it missed out on that one. Not sure what the top of that will look like yet, or how tall it needs to be. This required a bit of machining on the cylinder castings to make a flat space for the manifold to bolt onto and a counterbore for an o-ring.

I've made new wheels from steel on the CNC machine. That was a big job but I only scrapped one. Went through a lot of cutters though, even with the coolant. I turned the treads with the CNC lathe head and they turned out really well. I reamed the axle and crank pin holes 1/2" and they seem a bit loose to me, but once the strong loctite is in and some scotch keys (for the axles) I hope they'll be ok. I wish I'd made the spokes thinner but they're good enough and you can't see these tiny wheels (4") much anyway when the loco is at ground level.

New axles with oil passages drilled from the ends to a cross hole where they sit in the axleboxes.

New axleboxes that are a very good fit in the frames, and the axle holes all have the same offset error! I couldn't dial it out no matter how much I measured and fiddled with the edge finder. I still don't know why the holes didn't end up in the centre fore-aft but I reduced the error from about 0.5mm to about 0.3mm as I went. The old axleboxes were a pretty rattly fit and even had shims on them so I hope these will be better. They still need bushes. I've bored them 3/4" to suit the axles for testing but it's such a good fit I want to leave it rather than risking stuffing it up when I bore out and add bushes but I can't redo them after the wheels are fixed on so I will do the bushing eventually.

It occurred to me that as I'd done the axle ends 1/2" I could try the rods on them for a laugh and see how far out things were. One rod slid straight on but the other required a bit of encouragement. When I had it on just the rear wheel it was clearly sitting at an angle. I eventually convinced myself there was a slight bend right before the rear boss so tweaked it in the vise. I'd already taken the bush out so I had to put it back in, cleaned out the bore and the rod now sits fairly straight and the axles spin freely enough with both rods on. The old rear crank pins both have severe wear on them when you compare the part under each rod and I'm hoping the bent rod was responsible for that.

I was amazed the rods went on at all so pleased with that. It means the rods must have been well made to begin with.

The eccentric straps were sloppy and had worn oval so I trimmed and rebored them and have made new eccentrics to fit. This is a slip-eccentric loco and I still need to make the stop collars. One of the stop collars on the old axle is galled so badly it can't be moved which probably explains the uneven beat the loco had. Even if I'd got the timing right at some point one of the many accidents this loco is prone to clearly gave it a bad knock. Maybe the same one that bent the coupling rod.

I've made an axle pump eccentric and machined the strap for it but have not decided whether a pump will go on. I'd like one because this loco is diabolical with injectors due to the dirty boiler but I'm worried a pump would make it run jerkily. If I put one on I'll need to add a new stretcher for it too.

The current valve rods are terrible so they'll get redone. I'd soldered them together with 15% silver solder, not knowing back then it didn't work on steel. They broke and got plates riveted to them with more silver solder so they look terrible and holes for the pin up the front are all worn too. I hope I make better ones this time!

It needs a choke in the chimney which is simply a piece of exhaust pipe at present. Not sure how far I'm going to go with the front end. It could be a new smokebox and chimney, or it could be a choke slid into the current one with a bigger petticoat pipe at the bottom.

I'm going to cut off the front buffer beam because it has a very bad bend in it and being made of 6mm steel I can't get it out. I'll remove the bits of it outside the frames and make new bits to fit there, leaving the central part welded to the frames as it is now so they don't get put out of alignment.

Sadly I'm stuck with the boiler but I'm hoping new front end arrangements will help it out. Just raising the blast pipe as I did a few months ago seemed to work on the next steaming but then it was back to its usual self so I don't know what to think. But until it has a proper chimney, petticoat, and blast pipe set up I supposed I can't expect much from it.

A big project, but it's about as simple as a steam loco can get. I've been trying to fix this thing for at least 12 years now and even what I considered major overhauls never seemed to fix it so I figured I'd go the whole hog.

[David]

The bronze bushes are in the axleboxes now and one rod still fits easily, the other is tight but did go on. Still have spring pockets and oil galleries for the sides to go.

I made 6 crank pins today - 4 duds and 2 replacements. The duds all came about because I forgot my wheels are 16mm wide rather than 12.7mm and the original wheels have a 1/8" boss where my machined ones are flat. So the first ones were all about 6mm short.

I didn't want to risk them not having enough support in the wheel, they'd be missing out on more than 1/3 the wheel thickness.

I made the rear ones again because they're a simple shouldered design. The fronts have a counterbore and 4BA threaded hole in them and I'd had enough by the time I got to them that I'll do them later. I can make the new ones from the old, short driven axle pins because the front ones are much shorter.

Unfortunately that was quite a waste of time and 1/2" silver steel, but it's good I can reuse two of the duds to make replacements. Making it up as I go without a lot of checking is a bit silly.

[David]

I made the two remaining crank pins today and put them into the wheels tonight. Turns out I forgot to run the reamer through one of the crankpin holes - no idea how! That means I need to set the wheel making jig back up on the mill. So three pins are in.

I'm a bit concerned that there won't be enough loctite in the joint. The pins are a sliding fit and each pin seemed to push the loctite out ahead of it.

[simplyloco]

Nov 5, 2023 9:05:37 GMT David said:

I made the two remaining crank pins today and put them into the wheels tonight. Turns out I forgot to run the reamer through one of the crankpin holes - no idea how! That means I need to set the wheel making jig back up on the mill. So three pins are in.

I'm a bit concerned that there won't be enough loctite in the joint. The pins are a sliding fit and each pin seemed to push the loctite out ahead of it.

So long as you have a nice transition fit then it will work. I usually coat the shaft as well and twist it as I insert it.
John

[ettingtonliam]

I tend to 'cotton reel' such things, turning down the middle for about half the length by a couple of thou, no more. This makes sure that there is loctite in the joint.