More Eccentricity

Another busy week on CR 828. The eccentrics and straps arrived back from the RPSI on Monday 20th June. They were brought over by Bob Edwards, the Man with the Plank, who took charge of offloading the parts into the Whitehead machine shop when I was there with them a few weeks back. Bob offered to stay on and help with fitting the parts back onto the loco. This offer was gratefully accepted. The RPSI has done a great job and it looks like 828 should run like an even better sewing machine with the straps fitted beautifully to the eccentrics. Nathan Lightowler spent several days under the loco to complete the final fitting of the eccentrics by "blueing" and hand scraping to ensure the best possible fit. He was very ably assisted in this awkward task by Benny McInnes.

Roddie McRae was busy earlier in the week cleaning and preparing the eccentric rods for refitting - something that will be happening pretty soon. 

Other activity has included refitting the pipework in the cab for the brake system and starting to clean up the coupling rods.

Riley's assure us that that they are on the case with the tender tyre forgings. Colin Vaughan has a meeting at their place in Heywood during week commencing 27th June and has been told to expect nothing but good news on all fronts......(!!)

Roddie McRae caught by surprise by the camera while cleaning up the eccentric rods..

Bob Edwards, newly arrived from Whitehead, gets ready for offloading of the eccentrics and straps.

Back in the Shed, the newly machine eccentric parts . (The large piece of wood is the shed door crossbar)

A good view of the nicely machined white metal on a pair of the straps. And well done the White Metallers, Alan French and John Greig..

Benny McInnes with the first half of the RH eccentrics ready to go under the loco (note the lifting table loaned by the C&W Dept)

A very heavy lift by Bob and Benny got the first half lifted into place and butted up against the driving shoulder on the RH crankweb.

The heavy lifters in action...

RH eccentric in place...

The view from underneath. Bob Edwards, Nathan Lightowler and Benny McInnes ponder on the tightening of the eccentric clamp bolts. It took a bit of time to get them clamped up exactly where they needed to be. The secret lay in getting the split line joint distributed evenly and making sure that the axial clearance between the LH and RH eccentrics was equal. We wondered how long it had been since this job was last tackled...

Crankaxle fully assembled once more with eccentrics that are truly circular...

We blued all the eccentrics and then offered the straps up onto them and then hand scraped until the bolts could be fully tightened and the eccentrics were free to rotate 360 degrees. Once we rebuild the inside motion it will be a matter of moving the old girl up and down the yard and making sure that everything settles in properly..

The first of the four - the RH Fwd Strap scraped in and ready to go...

BRCW Sulzer Type 2 D5394 propels CR 828 back into the Shed at the end of another days of eccentric strap fitting..