2 in. Ruston Proctor SD

[russell]

I have recently received this part built Ruston Proctor SD Light Steam Tracctor purchased at auction:

Unfortunately it was slightly damaged in transit, the tender which was held on by four screws was knocked off and distorted and the crankshaft was bent so that the flywheel had a wobble of about 0.1 in at the rim. Nothing too serious though so I have been carefully stripping it and examining everything. Found the following major faults so far:
1. Firehole is too low on boiler by 0.15 in
2. Rear axle is too high as a result of using 16 DP gears instead of 10 DP and choosing the wrong numbers of teeth.
3. Boiler barrel 3 3/8 instead of 3 1/2 dia.
4. As a result of the above the firebox door doesn't open!
5. Lots of other minor faults such as wheel rims too thick, and castings poorly finished, which are easy if time consuming to fix.

I will pressure test the boiler and then decide whether to use it and do some re-design to accomodate the errors (change the final drive gears) or scrap it and build a new one.

Russell.

[albert]

Hello Russell,
The rim thickness is easily fixed as the spokes have not been put in.
The boiler barrel I woud not worry about.
The gears yes but check the gear ratios those on the 6" version are way out on the drawing.
The firehole to tender was out on mine but rectified by moving the tender floor,or in your case re-hang the tender a little lower.
If you are going to seriously run the engine I do not think I would be happy with brass hornplates.
You may have to make new hornplates to rectify the rear axle position.
Have seen odd 2" R/P running very well.
Good luck with your buy
Albert

[russell]

Yes, I certainly will have to make new hornplates. I will have to replace one or both final drive gears to increase the spacing between the axle and the second motion shaft and lower the axle. I will carefully measure the boiler and the threaded stay positions and draw it up on CAD to see how many teeth I need to add to the gears.

I have now stripped it all down into components and sub-assemblies. The run out at the flywheel end of the crankshaft has been reduced from about 50 thou to 5 thou with the judicious application of a "Birmingham screwdriver. On visual examination of the boiler there are a couple of stays and boiler tubes where the silver soldering looks poor so the next job is to fix those before a pressure test. Even if the boiler turns out to be scrap I am pleased with the buy as I paid considerably less than the cost of the castings, and the machining done varies from good to recoverable.;D

Russell.

Russell.

[russell]

At last found time to make up a boiler test rig and some blanking plugs and connected up the boiler. Started filling it and before I even pressurised it it started leaking like a sieve!

So now have to decide whether to try to fix it and still end up with a boiler with the firehole too low or just scrap it and make a new boiler. I guess I will try repairing it first. If nothing else it will be good practise!

Russell.