Kit 22 - The penultimate kit
I find it hard to name this kit as it addresses several functions

ModelWorks 4 inch Scale Burrell Agricultural Traction Engine
Kit 22 was delivered Monday 19th September

Monday:  Did not get much done as the kit did not arrive until 5pm.

Tuesday: Checking though the contents I noticed that the the long studs for the whistle base have not been included.  I have contacted Steve and they will be included with the final kit.

I started with the pipes.  I hate pipes.  I had hoped that fitting the pressure gauge pipe would be easy but the corner under the pressure gauge is very congested. I had put in additional kinks to get it to go behind the other pipes. 

I turned my attention next to the steam feed to the water lifter.  When I offered up the pipe It was about 2" too long at the joint near the fire door.  While I could have lost the extra by bending the existing kink into an 'S' I decided to reroute the pipe completely so that it does not obstruct the fire door. 

I straighten the the end section of the pipe in preparation for rebending.  As I needed to perform 90 degree bends I decided it was time to make a former.   I rebent the pipe so that it goes down to below the op of the water tank before it comes across to meet the mating pipe.  This routing used up the extra pipe - problem solved.

Where this pipe exits the tender there is meant to be a support.  Unfortunately because of interference from the Injector steam feed pipe it is not possible to fit this.  I plan to make a combined support that will use the existing fixing holes and support both pipes. 

A final problem with this pipe was encountered when I tried to connect it to the water lifter.  The union nut is longer that the threaded portion of the lifter with the result that it cannot be tightened down onto the pipe's nipple.  I will either have file down the union nut or insert a packing washer.  As I said - I hate pipes

Wednesday: Today I fitted the gear change lever.  When filling the locking plate to size I quickly got it to a size that I could engage either gears but I was finding that I was having to push the yokes by hand to get them out of the way to swing the locking plate.  At this point the instructions made sense and further filling of the plate was required so that I could be swing the plate given the positions the yokes where coming to rests.  As it says this needs to be done a little at a time.  When finished whenever the lever is returned to natural the locking plate has a clear run to be swung into either position.

I did discover that it is possible to move the locking plate whilst 2nd gear is engaged to a position that could allow 1st gear to move.  After a lot of playing around I did manage to engage both gears simultaneously.  First I had to stop the engine in just the right place, engage 2nd gear and then push the interlock to one side.  It was then possible with a lot of jiggling of the gear lever to engage both gears simultaneously.  Any sensible movement of the gear change lever immediately unmeshed 1st restoring normal operation.

While a theoretical possibility I conclude that this is not a real problem. 

Wednesday: Fitting the blast pipe was relatively straight forward but I did find I had to remove the cylinder studs.  Now that I can see the finished results I am glad that ModelWorks took the time to get it right.  The smooth lines have been achieved by bending two separate copper pipes silver soldered together.  Apparently the pipe bender couldn't achieve the two bends close enough together.

The water gauge was next.  There is not a lot of room around the water gauge and I wish it had been supplied with an earlier kit.  The steam head in particularly got in the way when tighten the bolts.  I found that by removing a valve knob I could just about get the spanner in.  Most of the fittings have imperial heads and I am glad I invested is a set of imperial AF spanners.

When I fitted the top gauge body I found that the mating pipe was about 3mm too short.  Too my surprise I found that it 'stretched' when I did it up the unions.  Don't worry as the pipe was kinked the extra came for a change in geometry rather than actually stretching the copper. 

I found that once I had fitted glass bush, BU42232, I was able to use a length of 3/8 diameter brass rod to check alignment with the bottom gauge body. See picture right.  It is well worth finding something of 3/8" diameter as it takes the guess work out of alignment.

I found that I had to trim 1/16" off the lower water gauge extension and a similar amount off the body in order to get it to go back far enough to align with the top body.

 
Time spent getting the alignment right was well worth it since I don't want any strain being transferred to the glass when it is fitted.

When it came to fit the drain pipe I found it was very close to other pipes.  This was possibly made worse by my re-routing of the water lifter steam feed pipe.  When I get round to it I shall try and take the water lifter pipe the other side of the injector steam feed pipe.

The final act was to fit the water gauge protector.  I found in order to be able to fit it I had to file the slot in the top plate so that it would slip over the hex portion of the gland nut.

Unfortunately when I tighten the M3 locking screw it caused the protector to tip forward.  I hope that by judicious filing of the bottom plate I will be able to correct this.

Time and patience are required to assemble the water gauge but the results are well worth it.  That's the dry run complete, now I have to fit it permanently.

Friday: Lapping the cylinder drain cocks proved problematic.  Before starting I could see significant patterning in the valve body left by the taper reamer and one or two scratches.

After a modest amount of lapping I cleaned the valve and tried it on my air line at 60 psi.  There were leaks top and bottom and surprisingly air escaped through the valve when shut.  I continued lapping and eventual got a good seal top and bottom but still air escaped through the valve when shut.  I deduce that the taper widens out in the
centre of the valve allowing air to pass around the valve cock from inlet to outlet.  By this time I was getting worried as the hole in the drain cock was sinking below the line of the hole in the valve body.  To overcome this problem I used a dentist burr in my mini drill to elongate the hole upwards. Since the cock now passes further into the valve I had to make a packing washer to allow the nut to be tightened.

I continued lapping and while the seal improved it still passes a little air when closed.  On the second valve I took my time and exercised extreme care but the same sequence of events ensued.  I hope the valves will be sufficiently steam tight, perhaps they will fur on my hard water.   

Monday: Having got the drains as good as I could it was time to fit them to the Burrell.  Space is very restricted and a dogleg extension is used to connect to the cylinder.

While the drain cock cannot be fitted with the with the extension attached it is well work following the advise in the instructions and filling the oversize packing washer such that the valve will tighten in the right place before attempting to fit to the cylinder.   I later found that I need all the length I could get so be careful not to file too much away.   

In order to get sufficient room to fit the drain cocks in is necessary to shorted the two studs immediately below them (red arrow).  Each stud needed to be shortened so that it was level with the original nut (washer fitted).  To improve appearance I then slimmed the nut so that there was small amount of stud protruding.

Before fitting the drain extension it is necessary to fit the cylinder cleading.  I found that the bass band interfered with the drain extensions and had to be trimmed.  Again it is better to use more rather that less packing washers behind the extension. This is to provide clearance for the valve to clear the nuts pointed to by the red arrows.  

To obtain sufficient clearance for the drain to screw in, it is necessary to assemble them when they are within 1/4 of a turn of their final position.  Even so I needed to temporally remove the stud to the right of the rear valve (green arrow) to allow enough room to work.  Perhaps this was because of the problems I had lapping the valve that caused the stem to protrude further below the valve body than intended.

When fitting the operating level found that it was necessary to re-bend it to get it to fit correctly.  In particular I had to put a lot of 'twist' into the shaft just prior to the flat plate to get the shat to move away from the valve gear's rear rod.



This page is getting quite large and this is a logical place to split into part 2