William Injector

[WetHeader]

Evening all,

I have recently acquired a Martin Evans William. It was built by a fellow club member (who was a precision engineer) and it works beautifully.

I've recently fitted an Injector, as she only has an axle and hand pump and I wanted to have another means of getting water in. The injector was given to me by a friend, it says number 2 on the cap, but the threads are 5/16 x 32. I made the plumbing using 3/16 pipe on the water and delivery and 5/32 for the steam. The steam valve is from John Rex (1/4 x 40) and the water supply is on a separate tank (water valve 5/16 x 32).

When I try the injector, all i get is mostly water and steam out of the overflow, I try trimming the water back but it splutters. I can get it to nearly work, but it chirps and splutters loads and water and steam. I know that I've got no air in the water piping and I've done my best to have smooth bends in the delivery. Ive made sure the clack has enough ball lift and that the ball doesn't block the output. The water runs out constantly when the water valve is opened. One thing I haven't tried is to pickle the injector (although the cones are not blocked up)

Any help is much appreciated.
Thanks Tom

[uuu]

You need to cut down the number of variables here. Ideally you should test the injector on someone else's loco with compatible pipework. If it works, then your pipework is to blame, if it doesn't then you can start to play with the injector itself. And/or - borrow a known good injector and try it on your setup.

Wilf

[simon6200]

Your 3/16 delivery pipe should be thin walled so 22 gauge, not 20 G. Other than that, what Wilf said.

[britannia]

I had a similar problem with my Std 4 tank, and tried everything, including changing pipework, changing steam valves, changing water valves. The cure - I bought a pair of Pavier injectors, worked well after that. Web site for Ben Pavier is www.locomotiveworks.co.uk. May work for you? Worth a try as the injectors are high quality and always handy to have in stock anyway.

[WetHeader]

Hello all,

Many thanks for the advice. I made new delivery and water pipes and this has cured the problem so thanks again. I now have another saga.

When I've run the engine at home, it's ran beautifully. I took it to the club yesterday for its first track run in 20 years. It ran well but after a while the axle pump was a bit 'hit and miss', sometimes working but other times not.

The clack originally had o-rings on stainless shuttles, but I changed the the internals to take a 3/16 stainless ball as ths o-ring had gone hard. I took the clack apart after the run and found the ball had changed colour, like a dark gray with a small hint of rust which obviously caused it not to seat.

The only changing variable is that at home I ran her on filtered rain water, but at the club she was run on water from a softener.

Again any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks

[uuu]

Many of us like Silicon Nitride balls, available from ebay at very little cost. They're rustproof - and really round, really hard.

Wilf

[jo479]

After a problem when I made 2 duplex hand pumps which worked perfectly one day and not the next, they used 3 SS balls each, the lovely shiny SS balls went rusty over night, since then, when I buy SS balls I put them in a saucer of water for a couple of days to see if they go rusty, you'd be surprised how many do, worth checking.