Kit 6 : Valve chests
Kit 6 includes
Steam chests, covers and gaskets
Stuffing nuts
Guide bars
Guide bar brackets
Valve rods and intermediate valve rods
Valve rod forks, eyes and bosses
Valve rod boss bolts
Valve rod nuts & pins
Drain cocks and linkages
Extension bushes and blanking plugs
The usual collection of nuts & bolts, etc.
The instructions say that the guide bar brackets need filing down to clear the wheel flanges, and show a little bevel filed in the instructions. I decided to do this before I put the wheels on permanently. The idea being that I can check the clearance with the suspension spring fully compressed, or removed to be more accurate. I want to be sure that there was no chance of the wheel rubbing on the bracket. It turned out the I needed to remove somewhat more than the instructions suggest. I'm not sure how likely the suspension will even fully compress, but that's not the point. Anyway, after filing off a large chunk of metal I finally got a clearance. Well, the wheel just rubs, but only just, which seems ideal to me. I looked at the chunk removed, and decided that it would look a lot prettier if I re-shaped the bracket so that it looked like it was meant to be that shape. Here is the before and after shot. The rest of the casting has yet to be cleaned up. Once I remove the file marks with a bit of wet-n-dry, and paint it black, it will look just dandy, following the lines of the wheel.
I've painted the guide bar brackets, and then, much to my annoyance, I've had to file the bracket where the guide bar lands so that the bolt holes line up. The photo below shows where they had to be filed.
Then I fixed the guide bar & bracket. Easy to do, but leave all the bolts lose. Then rotate the wheels so the piston is fully to the rear and tighten the bolts on the guide bar bracket. Then rotate the wheels so that the piston is fully forward and tighten the bolt on the cylinder cover. The left hand guide bar bracket went on quite easily. The right one was more troublesome. I needed to elongate all of the holes to get it to fit.
Next up, the valve chests.
No problems here. It all went together easily.
Next comes the intermediate valve rods. The forks were a hadn't been machined very well. The shoulder was particularly rough. However, attacking it viciously with a file and then spinning it in an electric drill and holding emery paper against it soon got rid of the machining marks. Here is the traditional before and after shot.
I also found that the forks wouldn't screw all the way onto the intermediate valve rods. There was a 0.7mm gap where rod met fork end. I cured this by drilling a 5mm counter sink in the end of the forks, only about 2 or 3mm deep. That fixed the problem. Here is the rod assembled and fitted.
I've still got the left side to do, but after that there's not much left to do in kit six until I get the replacement drain cock. I broke one trying to force it round to line up. Silly mistake - I've got hold of some copper shim washers to line them up this time. The proper way of doing it, rather than the brute force and ignorance way........that ends up breaking parts.
I've finally got the replacement drain cock and fitted it. The levers all fit easily, although it's a bit fiddly getting the small screws in. The levers were painted black. I put the screws in the screw holes, and masked the threads, to avoid filling the threads with paint. This had the pleasant side effect of painting the bolt heads black.
The connecting rods are not fitted yet as I've still not finished polishing them. Pain in the butt job that I keep putting off. 26th Sept : Finally finished polishong those £$%"#@$ coupling & connecting rods.
Current weight : 25.6 Kg