Overhaul update
This shows the progress with the lower sub floor outside the Left hand frame. The red painted plate is the Left hand buffing plate and the white crosses indicate where the rivets are to be ground flat.
SMF Member John Ashton, applies primer to parts of the newly completed drag box which have not been painted as yet.
The “mag” drill in place for drilling holes in the left hand frame for the mounting supports for the cab floor and for the cab sub floor on the outside of the frame.
The Left hand frame showing all the newly drilled holes.
Meanwhile at the other end of the loco, SMF engineer John Bowater is tidying up and re-fitting some of the lubrication pipes on the inside of the RH frame.
Finally, Mick Flint the SVR’s Bridgnorth painter is busy with the needle gun cleaning off paint and rust from the rivets on the lower Left hand side of our tender.
The driver’s side running plate and lower cab floor is being rebuilt with new steel where needed.
With riveting completed, painting of the new metal continues with the application of two coats of primer. This will be followed by two coats of black undercoat, then however many coats of gloss black are needed to produce the best finish.
The new hind buffer beam with the rubbing pads for the intermediate buffers. That on the right has had its countersunk rivets ground flat to produce an even surface.
The rubbing pad on the left is still to do.
This includes the rear sections of the running angle and the flat floor itself.
The right hand side is shown in bare metal ready for the first coats of primer.
The tender requires little in the way of mechanical work, having been thoroughly treated when the tyres were replaced a year or two before the loco came out of traffic. The tank was new in 1998, but the SVR staff has begun its repaint by needle gunning all the original paint above the level of the frames, including inside the coal space.
The front face, rear and left hand side has had this applied.
The countdown continues: 62 weeks until she is scheduled to return to traffic! The updated notice of projected and current work shows what is and is about to happen.