Overhaul update
The return to full time working by SVR staff was necessarily postponed when one member contracted the virus, meaning that half the work force had to self-isolate. This ended last week and work on the frames recommenced. As already reported, the driver’s side injector and associated pipework, looking like one of the more exotic instruments in a brass band, is fitted, with the fireman’s injector ready and waiting.
The cylinder mechanical lubricator has lain on the bench for many months after SVR volunteer, Charles, took the internals home to recondition them, a quick job, as he thought.
After a hundred hours of work, he brought them back today, including many newly made components, and began reassembly.
Some of the internal components, one for each outlet to the steam chests and cylinders.
A close up of one of the lubrication parts which deliver oil to the steam chest and cylinders.
More work on lubrication pipework. Note the return of the Left Hand top slidebar. Although the working faces had been ground true, the trailing end was still to the original size, so once the crosshead was machined to match the rest of the slide bar, it would not have been possible to enter it over the remaining now oversized section. Hence the need for machining.
A discussion between the present and future SMF Engineering Managers on the best way forward.
This had involved the steam pipe to the Atomiser. It comes off a valve part way up the smokebox to a valve operating the cylinder drain taps between the frames. The offending pipe was found and identified.
Much fun was had inverting the cab roof to allow the inside to be painted, ensuring that the spectacle plate was not damaged during the maneuver.
Work then began on removing the existing paint, which revealed the green primer applied in the 1980s. It must have been good stuff!
A casualty of the paint stripping was that the main line running identity panel disappeared. Attempts to remove it whole were unsuccessful as it proved very brittle, so only photographic evidence now remains.
Painting parts of the engine continued, and then moved on to the tender brake pull rod, shown in bare metal last posting.