Archived news from 2016

December 2016

Starting to mark out the new smokebox door with handrail already drilled and fitted.

 

November 2016

Some of the fitted bolts are in really inaccessible locations. There are two holes that fall
between the two webs of the bogie pivot frame stretcher. These are only possible by hand as
no drill can get into this space. You can see the screw which is turned by hand to feed the
reamer through the hole and just the other side of the rathcet handle is a vee block that has
been packed up to support the reamer to keep it square as it goes through the hole. Hole
number 33 was reamed today so just past the half way mark now.

 

This photo clearly shows how restricted the access is for these holes above the bogie support
stretcher with very little vertical height between the tops of the webs and the underside of
the saddle in which to work.

 

October 2016

The first fitted bolt inserted in the frames, just another 63 to go.

 

Machining the first fitted bolt for the cylinders.

 

September 2016

This is the left hand cylinder with both the rear cover and slide bars temporarily mounted and the wire
re-erected to check once more that alignment can be achieved. This has proved to be the case so
we can now start reaming all the bolt holes and installing the fitted bolts.

 

Having got the cylinders perfectly aligned vertically and in their front to back position we still had a small
error in the horizontal alignment which is very difficult to correct short of machining the backs of the cylinders
or shimming off the frames, neither of which are really practical. Therefore we decided to temporarily
put up the rear cylinder covers and slide bars to check we could get the slide bars to align with the
cylinders and sit in the motion bracket correctly. Here yo can see the rear cylinder cover mounted
on the right hand cylinder.

 

The new rear cylinder cover having the stud holes opened out as they had been drilled slightly
undersize by the sub-contract machine shop that did the work for us.

 

August 2016

Starting to machine the first of the slidebars in preparation for re-fitting.

 

On trial assembly of the cylinders on the frames and checking alignment with wires we found a problem
with the left hand cylinder. Tracking it down either the frames or the cylinder block were not flat where
the two mate causing the cylinder to be off the frames by 3/16" at the front end.The inital assumption
was that it must be the frames after all the welding and work we had done on them and surely the machined
mounting flange of the cast cyliner block could not be bent? How wrong we were, the photo above shows
a straight edge clamped to the bottom edge of the cylinder set level at the two ends and clearly showing
a 3/32" high spot in the middle. Closer inspection of the casting shows evidence of old damage and repair
by BR that appears to have resulted in this distortion of the bottom flange. It must therefore have been
re-assembled like this and been in service like this, how they managed to get anything to line up is a mystery.
This has now been machined flat and now sits perfectly flat against the frames.

 

July 2016

Our longest serving active volunteer, John Brooker, who has been with us since the early days
when we had work parties up at Hull, before the loco moved to the CVR, has now emmigrated
to Australia to be with his family there. John is seen here on his last work day with us only
about a week before flying out to Australia after completing his last job on 45163, fitting the
front drawhook. We wish you well John for your new life down under and thank you for your
contribution over the many years that you have been involved with 45163.

 

Preparing the rear cylinder covers prior to mounting as another stage to checking alignment
before final reaming and installing the fitted bolts.

 

The method of supporting the wire at the front of the cylinder which enables us to tension the
wire and have fine adjustment to centre it accurately.

 

With the cylinders now mounted we have strung wires through the bores to check alignment.

 

June 2016

The left hand cylinder now also mounted. It has been many years since both cylinders
were attached to the frames.

 

May 2016

It's been some time since the cylinders were last fitted to the frames.

 

The front end is now really starting to take shape and look like an engine again.

 

The right hand cylinder loosely fitted and now requiring fine alignment before the holes are
reamed and new fitted bolts are made and inserted.

 

The right hand cylinder being prepared for mounting, there was a lot of swarf to clean out of the
oil feed holes, cylinder drain holes etc.

 

The cylinders and associated parts finally arrived back from machining in May. This shows
the front covers with the ring shrunk on to accomodate where the bore was opened up for the liners.

 

April 2016

The new smokebox door shotblasted and painted ready for marking out.

 

The smokebox door handrail after shotblasting and painting, this was in remarkably
good condition.

 

The smokebox door centre casting after retrieval from the old door, shotblasting and
painting. A very poor casting full of blow holes and imperfections.

 

Various bits retrieved from the old smokebox door for re-use.

 

The original door after retrieval of hinges and other re-usable parts.

 

As can be seen here the door liner and bottom baffle are life expired and will all be replaced.

 

The old smokebox door has also been taken out of store to retrive all the re-usable parts.

 

The smokebox handrail stanchions have been brought out of storage, shotblasted and
threads and taper pin holes repaired ready for fitting.

 

March 2016

Smokebox liner now fitted and bolted ready for rivetting.

 

Smokebox door ring now rivetted and holes drilled for attaching smokebox to saddle.

 

February 2016

A trial fit of the smokebox to position it correctly and mark off the bolt holes for securing
it to the saddle.

 

Another view of the smokebox temporarily placed on the saddle. The cross brace inside the
door ring is just temporarily tacked in place to assisst with handling.

 

Some of the first steam pipework no win place, this shows the connections to the atomiser
control valve.

 

A quantity of new pipe unions being machined and accumulated off site ready for use.

 

A number of pipe unions being manufactured off site and original fittings on the right have been
refurbished. The threads have been cleaned up and the seats for the union cones have
been re-faced.

 

A recent visit to Ian Riley's works shows progress with the machining of cylinders and
associated parts. This work is now all complete except for some work on the front cylinder
covers. As soon as this is complete the parts can all be delivered back to us ready for re-uniting
with the frames. These are the exhaust steam manifolds which have had all the jointing
faces skimmed to ensure steam tight joints.

 

The exhaust flanges on the cylinders themselves have also been skimmed to clean them up.

 

The cylinder and valve bores have been bored out as well as the correct bell mouth machined
in the end of the new liners and the end cover mounting faces cleaned up.

 

The cylinder drain cock mounting faces have been cleaned up as well as the threads refurbished.

 

The face for the main steam pipe as well as the sealing face for the Lenze ring and the
lubrication, indicator and pyrometer mounting ports, have been cleaned up and threads
refurbished for these mountings as well as the main steam pipe studs.

 

The front end of the left hand cylinder showing the bell mouth in the new liner as well as the
refaced mounting for the snifting or anti-vacuum valve.

 

One of the rear covers showing the refaced seat where it seals to the cylinder block.

 

The rear valve covers have had similar treatment to the rear cylinder covers with the
seating face cleaned up.

 

January 2016

The bearing surfaces on the end of the rod were built up with weld and machined where they had
worn/corroded and the mounting brackets have been re-bushed.

 

The refurbished drain cock operating shaft that mounts underneath the smokebox saddle. New
taper pins and keys fitted after assembly.

 

For comparison, another drip valve complete with the fitting inside which we still have to make
for the repaired one.

 

The two parts assembled together.

 

One of the vacuum system drip valves that was still attached to the engine had the shroud that
protects the valve itself smashed off. presumably by someone that wanted to retrieve the
non-ferrous part. To repair it we turned up a new shroud and screwcut a thread onto the original
part to assemble to two parts together. You can still see a rough part on the threads which
didn't fully clean up, from where the shroud had been broken away.

 

The hole now cut out for the blastpipe assembly.

 

Marking out the new smokebox for the cutout for the blastpipe assembly.