Time for a change,

Aparently it's as good as a rest but I would still like the extra few hours in bed! 

Lubricators,,.. That's the game of the day, to be more exact the ones from my friends dock tank, ... I rebuilt them a while back but one was playing up over the weekend so they are back on the bench, so ... I decided to put up a walk through, ( mostly for Tom so he knows how to do it himself!) 

So here goes.

Remove lubricator from the loco ..... Done!!

Empty lubricator...  Check!! 

One empty and clean lubricator! Right so step 1 remove the 2 locking nuts that hold the ratchet on and remove the clack from the bottom, 

Simples!... Now you need to unscre the ratchet wheel and shaft from the piston

This is a tricky task holding the rachet paw out the way whilst holding the wheel  that drives the pump to get the ratchet wheel shaft out,  

Step 3, undo the locking nut and unscrew the brass shaft from the pump body 

 

Now remove the pump! Simples, at this point clean the inside of the tank out well, lets not sort the pump and then fill it back up with crap as soon as you re- fill it!

Next twist the pump and remove the drive wheel, and undo the nut that's holding the pump onto the body,

Now you can withdraw the ram and remove the packing gland,

Now the packing gland is made from graphite string wound with a brass wire, so be Carefull of this. If you remove it, best advice is leave well alone unless you need to replace it, clean the ram and the tiny oil hole, and the body and basicly re- assemble in the same order you took it apart apart from when the pump is back in put the non return valve on first before screwing the brass shaft back in, this was you don't try and pull the pump over to one side or make it hard later because the pump isn't lining up to the hole underneath,

Bingo!!! You can now rebuild your own lubricators, !! Easy when you know how!!!

Don't stop believing!

Hold on to that feeeeeeerllllliiiinnnnngggg! .... 

I dunno why I came out with journey there, was in actual fact listening to led Zeppelin... Ahh well

So... Time for an update!

I've finally got over this lack of enthusiasm and kicked myself hard enough to get something's done, don't know how long it will last though! 

So whilst I was on the roll I've packed a few bits in,first and foremost was a little side project that me and a friend started a year or so back. It's a quadcopter that wouldn't fly.... Well after some tweaking it's now airbourne! Apart from a want to snap blades in half and throw it at me at high speed... More tweaking required!! 

But on the steam engine front, things have gather pace too, it's started with a 7 1/4" dock tank of my mates that came in for a setup, it's not the best example out there infact it's got more problems than you can shake a stick at but it now kinda goes.... Ish

With a bit of work on lubricators and such it should go a lot better than it did! After that as in the background pug is still on the bench and I put an evening or 2 aside to crack on! 

The exhaust manifold was the part of the day and getting that sorted so 

I made the block and bolted it in, then set about getting the position right, I screwed a brass bar into the exhaust hole to use as an alignment bar to get it central before soldering the pipes in permanently ,

Then added a blast pipe, wich annoyingly is a little short, but that can be solved, the other thing to work on was the useless water pump, this time I'm taking no prisoners!

I've milled the manifold off completely and soldered a new block to it for a new one,

Now with this I may actually be able to get it to work! So the project for this week is 2 non return valves and then hopefully install it into the frames and see if it works!.... Fingers crossed!!

I know this may seem a little rushed but I wanted to try and get something done on here but haven't got too much time to do it so enjoy!

Laters

Enthusiasm!!!!!!!

I have it all!!!!!......

Right now I've made my current state of mind clear, things have been moving! The Burrell's still at a stand still, apparently there will be no kit this month.... Seems like STW need to sort their lives out and get on with it!!!! Need a boiler, and valve gear to play with!!!!

So with the new season of messing around playing trains is coming round.... Maybe a bit more slowly and somewhat wetter than I had hoped, I've turned most of my attention to pug, time to get pug up to scratch and performing like a beast!

Well we came to the conclusion that there wasn't enough steam down to the cylinders, at all. The manifold arrangement leaked and was a pain so..... Upgrade time!

Fist up was increase the size of the fees from the regulator to the header on the front of the boiler, a pain in the ass but a fairly easy job

New pipe sorted! Much bigger bore so that should help pug to breath!

Next is to get the steam out header to the cylinders.....

So new pipes from the header to new inlets, 

The vertical fitting is the new bigger inlets and the angled manifold is the new exhaust manifold.... But ill get to that later, first. Some pipe work!

I had to make 2 steam feeds. So I used the old header and added another hole for the other steam feed and started making pipe, 

It may look a little wonky at this stage but  they aren't finished yet,

 By the time they were soldered up and sorted into the header and bent to line up  the end result is a lot better,

So steam feeds are done now onto the exhausts.... Still not sure how is best to do this bit so I haven't started yet,... Still need to work out how the 2 pipes are going to come together and form the blastpipe so... Any suggestions?