Overhaul update

The connecting rods mounted on trestles, the pink hue showing that crack detection work has been done.

Having passed this important test, they were thoroughly cleaned and the inside and lower faces painted to prevent corrosion to these inaccessible places.

Another small detail done: the leading steam heat connection all assembled. In LMS and BR service, only the first ten of the class had this.

This is the mounting pad for the steam manifold, and appears to have a blow hole in the casting. We assume it will be built up from weld, then machined flat and the mounting hole drilled.

Work currently involves fitting the protecting segment at the bottom of the ring just above where the door fits; both the door and ring have forty-five degree matching tapers and it is essential to prevent char getting between them. Brian is using the mag drill to make the holes by which it will be riveted in place.

On each side of the smokebox are these brackets, into which the crossbar which is engaged by the door’s dart is dropped. With later Stanier engines, the bar was hinged on the right hand side.

The superheater header has been moved into the machine shop to have its faces for the regulator valve resurfaced, and is mounted vertically on the machine.

The ends of the piston rods had been loosely fitted into the crossheads so that the pistons could be pulled right back in their cylinders to check clearances. When the cylinders were rebored, the boring bar could not fully reach this end due to the back covers being in place; they had to be finished by hand and this made sure that nothing touched.

...and so the rod was split from the crosshead so that piston just emerged from the front of the cylinder.

Prior to fitting the rings, Graham checked their depth against that of the piston groove and found them to be the same at 5/8 inches. Unfortunately, the groove should be slightly deeper than the ring to allow a small amount of clearance.

This meant that the pistons needed to be removed again for attention in the machine shop. The left side was easiest of access.