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  1. #16
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    Adelaide
    Posts
    574

  2. #17
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Adelaide
    Age
    68
    Posts
    1,373

    Default

    Those were the days, not a hi-vis jacket in sight and people everywhere. Both locomotives are still running, 3801 has just come out of a major rebuild and 621 is still plugging away with constant care and attention.

    On the 520 front, work is progressing - it has to be fitted in around the mammoth and never ending task of keeping the 3 operational locomotives running - with all the tubes and flues now removed and the tube plates cleaned up ready for thickness testing.

    The steam superheater header, a casting weighing in at around 1 ton, was removed with the aid of our old Leyland crane truck, a forklift and lots of thinking and head scratching. It appears to be in good condition which is a relief as having to fund a replacement casting would probably kill the project off.

    The next big step is to remove the entire smokebox from the front of the boiler barrel so we can manufacture and fit a new one.
    Before we can do this we need to work out how to ensure that the new one can be fitted such that it is perfectly in line with the boiler and firebox. It would be REALLY unfortunate if, some years down the track, we tried to refit the boiler to the frames and were to find out that it didn't fit!!

    Current thinking is to arrange some form of laser through the front and rear tube plates to allow us to project a repeatable reference point to the front of the smokebox and to then take measurements from that reference point to the smokebox periphery. It's important to get this right as the new smokebox will be riveted to the boiler so there will be absolutely no ability to tweak adjustments after the fact,
    Back in 1936 at Islington I would imagine that it was all done in a jig of some sort, albeit a very big one.

  3. #18
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Adelaide
    Age
    68
    Posts
    1,373

    Default

    The next milestone was achieved when we removed the smoke box from the boiler using a 1960's Leyland truck and the forklift. The rivets were burned off, drilled out and driven out, we ended having to slit the barrel in 3 places to allow the box to be worked free of the boiler section. Hopefully this link works:

    https://www.facebook.com/1028292334/...7004336054879/

    Prior to removal we set a laser up on the front tube plate to allow us to align the new box once it's been fabricated. There's a long way to go but this is good progress.
    We also removed the regulator, J pipe and steam pipe so the boiler is now empty and can be examined internally.

  4. #19
    Join Date
    Dec 2005
    Location
    South Australia
    Posts
    1,656

    Default

    And for those who don't use FaceBook

  5. #20
    Join Date
    Aug 2008
    Location
    Adelaide
    Age
    68
    Posts
    1,373

    Default

    I'm hoping the footage will end up on the project web page soon, it only popped up on FB today. I'll talk to the web bloke next week.
    The project page is https://www.fireup520.org

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