Autopsy of a Locomotive

Three weeks ago I saw this beautiful view, looking out my kitchen window! But, last Saturday was bright and sunny, and the temperature was a few degrees above freezing, and all snow was gone - so, I drove to Hyvinge once more (I had my loco stored in the Museum's shed), and ran it for the last time this year.

The steam plumes were spectacular in the cool air! I had decided to take the loco back home with me this time - the unheated shed (seen in the background) is not the best place to store a loco when the temperature is constantly swinging above and below freezing...

Well, the loco is now in my basement workshop, on its stand... Looking at it close up, I saw loads of muck and gunk! Time for an overhaul!

Fortunately, I had kept everything well oiled, so there was no great wear in the links and pivots - just marginally more play than when new. So, here I don't have to do much, just a cleanup and lube job...

The piston rods, however, are unfortunately slightly scoured on the underside - probably because of dirt thrown up by the front truck wheels. But the cylinder gland o-rings have not yet started to leak noticeably, so I won't do anything about it yet - I'll check again next year...

There are a few rust stains on the rods and other bright steel parts, but they will disappear with just a light touch of emery paper.

I had a few fears, though - how would the slide valves look, after two summers of running? Well, opening up the steam chest, I was pleasantly surprised: the aluminum bronze valve looked very good, slight parallell lines, but smooth, as if it had been polished with 180 grit emery or so...

... and the valve seat looked even better! It is of brass, and I had feared it would be badly scoured after all the running. No, it was smooth and nice - the slight lines you can see here don't even catch my nail when I run it over the plate. I think I can thank liberal lubrication, with real steam oil, for this!

In fact, this was the greatest, and most pleasant surpise - Morewood, in his book "So you want to build a Live Steam Locomotive", says that brass agains bronze is a no-no...

Another fear I had was scale in the boiler. Having run on three locations, but mostly in Hangö, where the water is rather hard (containing gypsum, i.e. calcium sulphate, one of the worst scale-causing contaminants), I really thought I'd have a thick, furry, white coating inside the boiler. But no! Only a very thin, loose, flaking coating! And this after boiling off a few cubic meters (i.e. a few tons) of water!

I have always blown down the boiler completely after every 3 to 4 tenderfuls (at 12 liters / 3 gallons each), so maybe that has helped avoid scale buildup...

Thanks to having fittings in both ends of the boiler, I could shine a light trough at one end, and study the inside of the boiler and the condition of the tubes from the other end - this photo is taken through a mere 1/2" opening!

I'll do a renewed 2 x hydro test to some 200 psi (14 bars) next spring, before using the boiler again.

This I knew I'd have to fix - the radiating cones of the burners are badly deteriorated - they crumble when touched.

Fortunately, with the new burner design, it's a piece of cake: Rolling a length of stainless steel netting into a cone, and attaching some spacers of the same material, then push the cones into the flues. Half an hour at most. (It would be too easy if propane, water and some oil were the only consumables, right?)

In addition to this, I'll have to clean fittings, safety valves and whistles - there have been some steam leaks lately, the whistle valves didn't always close completely.

But, the winter is long, and I can't work all the time on the new 0-6-0 project...

... or can I?

A few days ago I made the builder's plates, with the same technique as for the 3003: etching brass with ferric chloride, painting the recess and polishing the raised letters.

I expect to get the laser-cut parts for the cab, frame and rods for the 0-6-0 any day now, and I'll update this website when I have something new to show...



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