The front barrel and the new outer butt strap have both been drilled. Both the inner and outer buttstraps are now bolted to the barrel. All the holes have been reamed and the assembly is now ready for riveting.

Present work on the taper barrel involves slicing both the front and back of the barrel to produce the correct unequal taper barrel. The front has been done and the back has been marked out.

The original front tubeplate has been completely refurbished, with new washout plugs fitted. It is now ready for refitting.

Work is ongoing in correctly positioning the new valve rod slides central to the valve rods. Some shimming with brass shims is required.

The gantry crane has now been erected outside our works and all the new boiler components moved onto our site. Allan has made good progress on the front barrel. Firstly, he has welded both ends of the seam for a distance of 12". The inner buttstrap is presently clamped in position inside the barrel and the 15/16" dia holes for the rivets are being drilled in the barrel using the buttstrap as a template. (The stand in the centre of the photo is a drilling work aid.) He is using our new air drill for this job. The new outer buttstrap has been flame-cut and shaped from the rolled blank. The outer buttstrap for the taper barrel is being cut and shaped as well.

 

The dome and inner butt strap have been seperated from the taper barrel of the old boiler. The dome has been completely refurbished. The inner butt strap will be reused on the new boiler.

It was a good job that we did not attempt to remove the foundation ring from the firebox when the boiler visited Baron St. A sealing weld was discovered along the joint of the foundation ring and the firebox backhead. This was a B.R. repair. To enable Allan to remove this weld, the firebox feet had to be removed. The weld has been removed and the foundation ring is now ready for lifting out of the firebox.  The base of the feet will be remachined before they are rerivited to the foundation ring.

The two new boiler barrel sections and the formed material for the new outer butt straps have been delivered. They currently reside at Baron St, but will be transported to our works in the near future.

Work is under way to erect heavy lifting gear outside our works. We have borrowed a 10 ton capacity A Frame from the ELR and this will be put together and placed on concrete pads. This will enable us to do most of the boiler assembly on our own site.

More items have been fitted to the smokebox recently.

A strengthening plate has been welded in place between the chimney hole and the aperture to access the superheater header. Also fitted is the stainless steel protection plate on the smokebox door ring. As its name implies this protects the angular sealing surface that the smokebox door locates against when it is closed.

The duplex valve is now in position on its new mouning plate inside the cab. The two operating shafts have to be shortened and a hole on the cab front needs to be made larger to accomodate the altered copper pipe run that delivers steam to both the duplex valve and the steam brake.

The new drive rods for both mechanical lubricators have been completed. These fit between the shafts on the inner face of the expansion links and the linkage directly below the mechanical lubricators.

The new roof is now complete except for the gutters situated directly above the cab side windows. The new sliding ventilator plates have been put in place on the roof.

Further photos of the boiler lift have been added to the last update.

Painting of the underside of the roof has now started. Brackets and tubing for the whistle operating chain guides have been made and fitted to the underside of the roof.

The new mounting bracket for the duplex valve has been completed. Paint is also being applied to it.

Finally a news update on 80097.

Allan has been working away on the boiler as and when time permits. All the rivets holding the taper barrel section to the throatplate have been removed as have the copper palm stays.

Completion of this work enabled us to seperate the taper barrel from the firebox and then turn the firebox through 180 degrees and remove the foundation ring. This work was done on the 24th and 25th of March. Our lowmac with the boiler on it was shunted down to Baron Street during the morning of the 24th. Using the 75 ton diesel crane the taper barrel section was lifted out and placed on 2 P.Way trolleys during the afternoon. On the 25th the firebox, complete with longitudinal stays still attached, was lifted off the lowmac onto the ground, again using the 75 ton crane. By using various slinging techniques it was then placed first on its side and then pulled upright. It was then relifted back onto the lowmac. An attempt was made to remove the foundation ring, but with it attached to the crane hook at four points and removal about to start a lubrication pipe on the crane ruptured and the lift was aborted. We then shunted the lowmac and the P. way trollies back to our Bury Bolton Street works in a most unusual freight (see photos) The P. way trollies were then hand shunted into our works, with a few inches to spare, to enable Allan to remove the dome and the inner butt strap from the taper barrel section. These will be reused on the new boiler. The lowmac was then shunted, again by hand, to its usual position outside the works.

The new cab roof is now on the loco. The ventilator has been trial fitted and then removed to be painted. A few small components such as the gutters and the whistle operating gear have to be made and fitted to the roof.

At the suggestion of Frank Cronin (a driver at the ELR and SVR), the duplex valve has been moved from its pocket on the LH side tank into the cab. This is to enable ease of access for maintainence. Some new pipe work had to be done and a mounting bracket made.

Both expansion links are now in place. The RH one was mounted between its trunnions and was quite free. However the LH one proved to be a pig. It jammed solid when mounted. The problem was eventually traced to distortion of the expansion link halves during the overhaul of them and some precision shimming, thankfully cured the problem.

The SSJ ejector overhaul is now almost complete with some new nuts being made to connect up the pipe work to it. The pipe that fits between the ejector and the elbow has been made. The ejector elbow has been finish machined and a drip valve made for it. However, a phosphor bronze spacer has yet to be made before the elbow can be mounted on the smokebox.

The fittings for the regulator operating rod are being machined. This rod( or tube) is positioned between the regulator lever in the cab and the regulator operating shaft on the boiler.

 

More work has been done on the boiler this week. All the rivets holding the front butt straps in place have been burnt out. Allan is cutting up the front boiler barrel in situ. The section containing the butt straps will be cut out as one piece and the remains of the rivets hammered out.

The roof ventilator and mounting plate have been completed. Additionally, we are fitting grease points to the dovetail slides that are rivtted to the mounting plate. Work has now started on the actual roof. This has been formed in two halves which will be welded together.

 

Allan commenced work on the boiler last week. All the rivets and corner screws holding the foundation ring in place have been removed. One of the washout plug seatings on the lower corner of the throatplate has been built up with weld and reshaped. Also built up with weld was one of the mudholes. This was then reprofiled using a small grinder. All the other mudholes will be done the same. He has started to remove the rivets holding the front barrel buttstraps in place. The inner butt strap will be reused on the new boiler.

A quote has been obtained for the new boiler barrel sections etc and an order will be placed shortly.

The roof ventilator and mounting plate is taking shape in our workshop.

The ejector elbow drain valve has been machined.

Further progress has been made on the new ashpan.

 

All four sacrificial plates have been fitted inside the smokebox. Two pipe clips and sleeves have been bolted to the outside of the R.H. side of the smokebox. These will support the pipe run to the tube cleaner valve.

Attention has now turned to doing the cab roof.

Work continues on the new ashpan.

Allan Schofield will be starting work on the boiler at the end of the month. His first job is to remove all reusable items from the existing boiler barrel. These include the dome and the internal butt straps. We are awaiting  a quote from a contractor for the supply of the two new boiler barrel sections, two new outer butt straps  and a forming ring.

Also being made at the moment are the ejector elbow and associated drain valve and the firebox mudhole doors.

 

 

 

The front sacrificial plate has been drilled and bolted in place inside the smokebox. The rear plate will now be fitted, followed by the two side plates. Also required is a protection plate that has to be riveted to the bore of the smokebox front ring. This has been ordered from a contractor.

Some of the motion has been taken down in order to fit the lubricator drive arms to the inside shafts of the expansion links. The drive arms are original components, but new retaining nuts have had to be made.

Work has progressed on the ashpan. The rear damper door has been completed and fitted in place.

The completed draincocks have been refitted to the undersides of the cylinders.

The thread on the front casting of the ejector has been recut. A new nut has to be made to suit the thread. The new ejector cones have arrived and will be fitted inside the ejector body.

With regard to the boiler, there has been a complete change of plan to what has previously been stated. The boiler work, including assembling the new barrel sections will now be done at the E.L.R. Boilersmith Allan Schofield has been contracted to do the work. He has previously made the new boiler barrel for 80072. The work will be carried out at the Baron Street site of the East Lancs. This work involves: -

Removing the existing boiler barrel.

Turning the firebox through 180' and removing the foundation ring for repair. Repairing,by welding, any grooving on the inside faces of the outer firebox skin and refitting the foundation ring.

Completing both new barrel sections independantly of each other then assembling them together.

Reassebling the new boiler to the firebox.

Refitting the dome.

Refitting the refurbished front tubeplate.

When all this work has been completed the crinolines and clothing will have to be trial fitted before the boiler can be reriveted to the smokebox. It is a big job, but we will get there.

 

 

All the rivet holes around the circumference at the rear of the smokebox wrapper have now been drilled and temporary bolts now hold the rear ring to the wrapper. Work will now start on fitting the four sacrificial plates inside the lower area of the smokebox. Again, many holes have to be drilled.

The old copper palm stays at the front of the inner firebox are being removed.

The hinge pins for the front damper door have been completed. They now have to be welded in place on the door.

 

 

 

The drilling of the holes holding the smokebox to the saddle has been completed and the smokebox is securely bolted down using temporary bolts. 

The rivet holes that already exist in the rear smokebox ring are now being drilled through the smokebox  wrapper.

The new short and long bolts that will hold the smokebox to the saddle have been completed. These will be fitted once the sacrificial plates, which are fitted inside the smokebox, have been fitted and drilled.

The Gresham & Craven SSJ ejector,which we imported from South Africa a few years ago, has been stripped down to be refurbished. New cones are required. These have been ordered from South Coast Steam Ltd. A new pipe fitting for the drain has been machined.

The ejector duplex valve is being moved from its position in a pocket at the rear of the LH side tank into the cab above the reverser. This is being done for ease of servicing the valve once the loco is in traffic. A few new pipe fittings have been machined for this job and two new short lengths of copper pipe have been brazed in place.

Two hinge pins are being machined for the front damper door.

 

The fitting of the piston and spring to each of the draincocks has been done. The draincocks are now ready for refitting to the underside of the cylinders. Also, both of the steamchest drain valves have been fitted with a 3/4"dia phosphor bronze ball. These act as seals when steam is admitted to the steamchests.

The work to refurbish the tube holes in the front tubeplate is almost complete.

 

The top section of the ashpan has been welded to the lower section. As stated in the prevoius report, there are a few plates yet to be welded in position before the damper doors can be fitted.

The smokebox rear ring is now in place and the drilling of the holes through the wrapper has started. The bolt holes that secure the smokebox to the saddle are being done first.

Work continues on the boiler/firebox. The washout plug holes on the firebox backhead have been retapped. The oval holes for the mudhole doors were badly wasted. These are being built up with weld and reground to the correct profile.

The regulator stuffing box housing has been removed from the boiler. It was then set up on the milling machine and the bore that locates the stuffing box was machined. This item will be reused on the new boiler.

The top section of the ashpan is now complete. The next move is to weld it to the lower portion and then complete the smaller welding jobs before fitting tha damper and hopper doors.

Unfortunately, three trial fittings of the upper ashpan to the bottom of the firebox have delayed the complete removal of all the rivets holding the foundation ring to the firebox. Currently, about three-quarters of the rivets are out. However, time has not been wasted. The palm stays have been removed as has the regulator stuffing box housing. The four short longitudinal stay brackets have been taken out of the boiler to be reused on the new boiler. In order for Allan to work on the removal of all rivets on the top half of the boiler we have had to improvise in building our staging to suit the job. The staging has been built off the ground adjacent to the lowmac and then, using a set of feet fabricated by ourselves,it is built from the floor of the lowmac up against the side of the boiler. I will put a photo of this in my next update.

Work has started on attaching the smokebox to the saddle. This involves drilling a lot of holes in the smokebox and the internal sacrificial plates, bolting them to the saddle as we go.

Recently machined and fitted in place is the elbow that is used to take the steam heat pipe from the steam heat reducing valve through the cab front plate and vertically down the inside of the cab front until the pipe is shaped to meet the tee in the steam heat pipe that runs from bufferbeam to bufferbeam on the loco.

Also finish machined is the regulator stuffing box and gland.

The smokebox tubeplate has been placed on our radial arm drill and the holes for the smoketubes are being reamed out.

During Christmas week the chassis got its 1st mile or so on the clock. It was shunted out of our workshop using an 08 and taken down to Baron Street. The new smokebox was put in place on the saddle using the ELR's road crane. Also loaded onto the chassis, were the sacrificial plates for the smokebox and the rear smokebox ring. These were placed on planking located between the sidetanks. The chassis then returned to our workshop. Unfortunately it rained all day during this operation. However everything was videoed and, hopefully, a DVD of the day's work will be available. I will let you have more information about the DVD when I know more.

In the workshop much has been happening. The return crank rods have been completed and assembled to the return cranks using the rather large roller bearings. Indeed, the left hand assembly is now on the chassis and pinned to the bottom of the expansion link. Work is now ongoing on the assembly of the R.H. side motion.

The top section of the ashpan has been welded up and is in the process of being fitted to the firebox foundation ring on a temporary basis. Once this has been done it will be removed and welded to the lower ashpan, which was built some time ago.

Work has also started on the fitting of the larger pipework to and from the injectors. We are presently using two scrap 10X injector bodies as guides as to where the piping has to go. Once we take delivery of our new injectors they will, of course, be put in place.

Work on the boiler is also progressing well. We are in the process of removing the old nuts and washers from the crown stays on the top of the firebox outer wrapper and replacing them with new ones. Also the rivets holding the foundation ring in place are being removed. This is being done using a rivet buster gun that we purchased. It is a seroiusly big piece of kit. Doing this job now will save time and money once the boiler goes to Crewe. The foundation ring will not be removed at Bury. It will be held in place, temporarily, by a few nuts and bolts. We will also remove all the rivets that hold the taper boiler barrel to the firebox throatplate. Again it will be held together using nuts and bolts.

The  internal fittings are being fitted to each draincock. Once this is completed the draincocks will be bolted back in place on the underside of the cylinders. The cylinder cock actuating valve body has been bolted in place on the inside of the LH cab side sheet. The internal components and the operating handle are being machined prior to assembly. 

The studs that hold the blastpipe to the base have been machined and fitted in place.The blastpipe and cap are now fitted in place.

The cylinder draincock bodies have been removed from the bottom of the cylinders in order to fit the internal components in the draincocks.

The steam heating pipes are being refitted to the chassis.

The L. H. expansion link is now fitted in place.

The blastpipe base needed to be rebuilt due to excessive corrosion. It has been removed from the smokebox saddle and the rebuilding work done. This has been completed and the base has been welded back on the saddle. The blastpipe has been machined as has the blastpipe cap. New studs have to be made to hold the blastpipe to the base.

The vacuum release valve has been fitted to the driver's pedestal and will now be piped up to the newly fitted vacuum cylinder and the driver's brake valve.

The work on the inner firebox is almost complete. Most of the new nuts have been fitted to the stays. The copper laps have been recaulked and new fusible plugs fitted. Work has now started on removing the old nuts and washers which are on the crown stays on the top of the firebox. These will be replaced with new nuts and washers. Due to the volume of work at LNWR, Crewe the boiler will not be moving there until early next year. This gives us more time to work on the boiler on our site, thereby reducing costs.

Further progress has been made on the motion. The radius rods have been refurbished and new die blocks machined. Both radius rods are now in place on the loco. Work is now concentrated on the expansion links and their die blocks.

The cylinder insulation has been put in place below the clothing and all non-ferrous pipe fittings refitted to the cylinders. Work has  started on completing the snifting valves, which were part machined some time ago.

The upper section of the ashpan is now being fabricated in position on the bottom of the foundation ring.

The big end and little end bushes and oiling washers for the connecting rods have been machined and fitted to the rods.

Work continues on the boiler.  Some rivets have been removed from the two rows that hold the barrel to the firebox. Eventually all these rivets will be removed and the barrel and firebox seperated. 

Cylinder clothing is complete except for two pieces off the front of the cylinder casting. These have to be laser cut.

Recaulking of the firebox stays is now complete. New nuts are being fitted on the stays. The four sidetank support brackets on the boiler barrel have been removed. These will be reused on the new boiler. Other items to be removed and reused are the dome and regulator stuffing box.

The clothing for the LH cylinder has been completed. All the items are now being painted before refitting.

The left hand coupling rods have been fitted to the chassis. The right hand rods will be fitted in a few weeks time.

The boiler will be going to LNWR Crewe in September for extensive work to be carried out. This work will be very expensive. To reduce the costs some work is being carried out at Bury by our boilerman Allan Schofield and other group members. At the moment all the firebox stays are being re-caulked inside the firebox, the stay threads cleaned up with a dienut and new nuts fitted.

The cylinder clothing is almost complete. The only outstanding work is the fitting of the reinforcing plates to take the bolts that hold  the steam pipe casings to the cylinder clothing.

 

During Christmas week the boiler was moved from Baron Street to outside our works. This was done to enable us to work on the boiler before it is sent to LNWR at Crewe for major work to be carried out.

The last three coupling rod bushes have been white-metalled and are being machined befor fitting to the rods. Hopefully the coupling rods will be fitted to the loco shortly. Also being machined at present are the connecting rod bushes. In a few months time the chassis will take on a differrent look with coupling rods, crossheads and connecting rods fitted in place.

Work has restarted on the new ashpan.

Ian Riley's company have completed the machining of the new pistons and piston rods. Also completed are the original LH crosshead and the new RH crosshead. The LH crosshead has been fitted between the slidebars and the anchor link attached using new fitted bolts, but the crosshead still needs polishing up.

Repair work on the smokebox tubeplate is ongoing. This has been removed from the boiler and is in our workshop. The work consists of building up wasted areas with weld and grinding the welds flush.

The plates for the new cab roof have been plasma cut and will now go to a contractor for forming.

Most of the cylinder cladding has been completed and fitted.

All the motion pins have been ground to size. The anchor links and combination levers have been fitted with new phosphor-bronze bushes. Both sets of combination levers, union links and anchor links are now in place, although only temporary. The upper valve rod slides have been machined and require drilling before they can be fitted in place.

Work continues on building up the valve rods, valve rod crossheads, piston valves and rings so that they can be fitted in place in the steam chests.

Photo also shows some of the new cylinder cladding.

 

Repairs to both sidetanks have been completed. The new water level indicator and float system has been fitted to the R.H. sidetank. The internal surfaces of both tanks have been treated with a rustkiller and painted with a sealing compound. The tanks have been filled with water and only one small leak was found. This was repaired and both tanks were drained.

 

Work is ongoing shaping and fitting the new cylinder cladding.

 

Building up of the motion has now started with the machining of new valve rod slides, which are now being fitted. Pins and bushes for the various motion components are being made as are the new bushes for the front steam chest covers.