Overhaul update
A few photos of work, the first from a months ago. The rest cover the last fortnight.
These are two soft copper gaskets that have been laser cut for the front cylinder covers. It should be noted that the loco has never had such cylinder gaskets in the past but our team leader, Graham, decided that it should now have them to bring the loco in line with the others in the Valley’s fleet.
The last overhaul update showed the super heater header on the big miller ready to have new seatings machined and stud hole drilled and threaded where welding had been carried out to repair the cracks that were found last year. As can be seen, the work has now been done and the header has since been removed from the miller ready for its hydraulic test.
One of the jobs done recently was to find and temporarily replace the front drop plates as mentioned in an earlier news report. On the Right hand side of the loco this meant having to drill new mounting holes in the angle that supports front of the the running plate. This angle was replaced several years ago by the working party because the original was badly corroded. The picture shows a jig that was made up to mount the "Mag Drill” to enable the the final hole to be drilled.
Here we see one of our number checking that all is well with the set up before putting on his safety glasses and drilling the final hole.
Now the hole can be safely drilled and a suitable domed head bolt fitted once all the swarf has been cleared.