Of pumps and progress

20th January 2019

Is it Sunday already? Where has this week gone? Well here we go again.

Monday was of course Tunstead day and to my surprise we had not only Andy H and Pete C but George appeared having not (yet) been banished to Hindlow. First job was to assemble the hydraulic oil tank to its support frame and the frame to the cab front, which we did but later dropped it by the gap of its mounting holes as we saw the clearances involved.

But I digress, for the major milestone was to fit the casings once and for all and thus fitted, the solid pipework between casings and cab could proceed. Pete C and George worked on this, after George had used his template and mounted the relay box into the left corner of the cab. Starting with the brake cylinder they constructed a pipe under the cab floor to a 3/2 valve at the front. As you will recall, it was not common practice in the 60s to fit 'low air protection' systems to locos so I am changing the air system and using the larger of the two receivers as 'main air' and re-allocating the smaller (which was previously a brake supply receiver) as the 'emergency'. The 3/2 valve will normally connect the brake cylinder with the driver's brake valve just above, but if air pressure is too low, or falling due to a defect, this valve drops back to its rest position where it connects the brake valve to a regulated air supply off the emergency air receiver. The first stage of the piping, the driver's valve and its connection to the 3/2 and thence to the cylinder can be seen (below) but the supply to the brake valve itself must wait for this week.

Meanwhile Pete and George moved on to the connection from the governor unloader valve to the main air receiver and its non-return, got that in but found insufficient half inch pipe left over to complete the connection from 3/2 to the emergency air receiver, for which I was lacking a filter anyway.

Andy H had been touching up paintwork and going round the window apertures in Golden Yellow in anticipation of the window rubbers, buit I got him to fit the header for the hydraulic oil suction filter which is about ready to be piped in.

What was I doing? Well aside fom walking to and fro to the van to collect more bits, I eventually got into the cab and made a start on things there. All the big power cables (apart from the starters, the biggest are 8mm sq between battery isolator, fuses and the alternator) were made off apart from the two to the ammeter, which await the instrument panel being ready to install. Those cables of the multi-core destined to turn left into the relay box were duly identified, crimped and connected, plus a few that go across from box to panel or fuses, and a start made on those turning right that go into the multi-pin plugs that the instruments are already cabled to. They aren't finished yet. and there's some tidying up to do, but you can see how it's all shaping up.

On the other side of the cab, I took out all the isolating taps and released the manifold, which I unscrewed from the cab with help from Andy H. Looking at it again, I realised that it is in fact two pieces, the manifold itself and a bulkhead fitting, so took it apart, finding between a short piece of one inch pipe with a single olive on, which confirms its Enots origins. Quite what was supposed to be achieved with the pipe and olive I'm not sure - I cannot see that it could be made so accurately that it would seal any better than that of the male thread into the female of the bulkhead fitting, but either way, split in two it does offer a better prospect of getting a piece machined to reinstate the complete manifold later. We are proud enough of RS8's progress that I posted a picture on the RMWeb thread featuring the loco, which has so far received 18 'Likes' (Y'see I'm trying to be cool and embrace this social media stuff).

On Tuesday after an early morning blood test I was off to my profilers to collect the bits that had been waiting since late last week, coming back with amongst other things the mounting plate for RS8's keyswitch and a set of profiles for the planned rad fan on Adolf. On the return I collected a temporary air manifold, filter and pipework from another supplier to continue RS8's progress.

On Wednesday Andrew had a half-days leave and we headed over the motorway to where his trailer was sat, as it was due its MoT and we had to lift off all the rails, packings and bindings as the trailer had either to be 'empty' or '2/3 loaded'. I'm getting too old for this sort of thing. As we headed back, we diverted to a farm near Derby to collect two of our latest e-bay aquisitions. Into the van went two fire extinguisher stations, complete with raucus alarms -well one worked and the other didn't, but they'll improve our readiness to deal with any such emergency. Also went in was a pump assembly on a stand:-

This is for hydraulic pressure testing and came with about ten pressure gauges of various ranges which alone (even if out of calibration) were worth the £10 for the 'lot'. Hopefully once overhauled this will enable us to add pressure testing of air receivers, miniature loco boilers and the like to our repertoire.

Andrew was over again on Thursday and we were joined by Andy H who first completed the concrete formwork outside before being allowed into the relative warmth of the shed. But even before he arrived, Andrew and I had fired up Charlie and set about a mammoth shunt. No, not shunting members of an extinct elephant species, but the yard is so full that to extract any one vehicle can be a bit of a major undertaking. For starters, out came Adolf from inside and the Sentinel and the recently arrived Hunslet changed places, as until such time as it has buffers, shunting the Hunslet is a trifle tricky. With that the Midland bogie well wagon came into the shed for Andrew to extract some (other) buffers, and after it had gone back, we loaded the remaining bits of the Wickham body on to the B4 bogie and shunted that out and on to the end of the middle siding where it won't be in the way. I was trying to shunt slowly when it came to Adolf, as I was aware that, being splash feed, the faster we moved the more chance of oil coming out of those places currently open to atmosphere. But Andrew got impatient, and it probably would have leaked anyway. Back inside, Andy was put in charge of grinding and hammering all the tabs on Adolf's casing front that were added at some time to place the grille a couple of inches further away from the radiator.

My job seemed to be to hover near Andrew, keeping an eye on the pressures of oxy and acetylene, but I managed to clamp 3 pices of profile together, drill the centre out and tap them to M12 x 1 ready to receive an electronic sensor that will drive the speedo system. One was subsequently bolted up to the body of a standstill detector to check it all fitted.

Towards the end of the day a visitor arrived as expected and we locked up about half-five. Andrew has some wheelsets due and before Christmas I was making some wheel stands until I ran out of 3 inch nails. During the week the urgency to collect them re-emerged so on Friday after lunch I popped down to the shed, made up a few more, repaired a couple of old ones then threw whole lot in the van and took them over to the contractors. The latter was a bit scathing of the lightness of some - I took the view that they weren't expected to last forever, in fact if some made this one journey succesfully I would consider them expendable. Watch out for this later.

Both Andrew and I had other plans on Saturday, and he too was absent Sunday leaving me to wander down for a few hours to please myself. Of course, a chunk of Sunday is now committed to getting the van loaded for a prompt start on Monday morning, and adding a few useful bits that I might need. I had planned that I would take a look at the new aquisitions. The non-working alarm on the second fire extinguisher station was nothing more than a flat battery, and sorted with one I had bought in for another purpose re-deployed. The pump however was a different matter. It wasn't sold as being in working order and so far I cannot get it to pump, but I imagine that we have the technological know-how to get it working. I checked on the 'net to see if the manufacturer could be identified but without any luck. I did start to open it up and liquid emerged - whether this was what I had been pumping or had been in there already I was unsure so left it for another day.

Oh, but I forgot. At the beginning of the week, after several more conversations on phone and e-mail, we arrived at a suitable air cleaner element to incorporate into RS8. It's about a third of the size of that fitted to 14 901 (which is logical), only £20 each (list) and they have 60 in stock. The only snag is that the stock is in the US, so 2 are now on their way, but I'll have to wait to get my hands on one before drawing up the enclosure to fit them to.

So that's about it for this week, and as usual I pause to look forward to what's in store. First off, Ludwig Mond is moving. It's due on Tuesday and no doubt Andrew will take it immediately in hand to finish the pipework that stopped it in the first place and look to me to sort out the defect on the electronic standstill detection. The Trailer passed its MoT on Friday so we've got to go back and put all the gear back on again, plus the haulier has donated to us the power pack he'd taken off a trailer as its Hatz engine ist kaput. I've got to go collect that and then we sort out whether it is easier/quicker/cheaper to find another Hatz (OK,OK, hatz off to us if we find one) or re-engineer it to fit the Lombardini we have in stock that was bought for that purpose. Either way it will in due course fit the trailer as an alternative means of raising the neck plus powering a winch - but this was supposed to be next weeks' preview. Add to that a load of wheelsets to unload, perhaps more snow, a visit to the Doc's scheduled to view progress on this fungal infection I have on my leg - I suspect I'm going to be busy again all week. How will it all pan out? Dunno. Come back next time. See ya then?