Summer 2007
26th September 2007

Summer 2007 update on progress restoring 45149

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Main news items on this update,are BIG ones! First we have progress on our power unit and secondly we have overhauled and tested our exhauster but we start with an assortment of new/overhauled components just to show its not all about big things. The picture shows, from the top, ETH buffer beam components removed from No.1 end (incidentally the entire buffer beam has been stripped down, needle gunnede and repainted). These components were shot blast back to bare metal, etch primed, resprayed and baked. Bottom left hand corner shows the replica works plate which will be carried on the loco and to the right of that battery box door safety arms (in yellow). These were added to the 45's in later years to prevent the battery box doors falling open and making the engine out of gauge, a failsafe design.
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 At last a view of something big returning to the power unit. This shows a 'B' bank liner being lowered into the water jacket. You see these liners being prepared in a previous update (Autumn 05). Our last task just before fitting the liner was to glue nylon fret bands to 5 of the 'B' bank liners and we would like to take this opportunity to thank Andre Kent and the BT4F for their help in acquiring these fret bands.
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 During the summer months our Chairman/Technical Officer gave our exhauster the once over and decided that the bearings inside were no good. With this in mind we face the task of removing the exhauster from underneath the break frame, a job skillfully avoided allegedly by BR fitters in the 45s' heyday. With pipework and conduit removed from brake frame to clear a way two of our members set about removing the exhauster and found the only way it came out was to roll it out. After a crippling weekend Chris then had the task of dismantling it and splitting the barrel assembly in two, one half with the motor and the other half with a large drum inside. With the armiture removed from the motor we then set about removing the bearings. Some debate between the members was whether to replace them with taper bearings, in the event we went with a like for like replacement of straight forward roller bearings, however, once the exhauster was stripped to component form the reason for one of the bearings failing was found to be that the end cap that it was in, the grease was not feeding through the channel so the end cap was taken away for modification by one of our members. At the same time a special tool was made to fit the bearing into its new home. After another back breaking weekend the exhauster went back home in two halves and was joined back together underneath the break frame.
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 After we had fitted the liners we then fitted the piston and this view shows the piston being hoisted up. Once the crank had been barred round into a suitable position with the barring over tool the piston with its shell bearing was lowered through the liner and onto the crank. We then fitted the piston end cap with a tool known as the piston end cap spoon, once the bolts were secured the spoon was removed, the bolts were then torqued using a special socket with degree marks engraved on it and by drawing a chalk line at zero the torque bar was pulled round to the third mark on the socket. Once this was done two locking washers are secured to the top of the bolts with a locking tab to keep them secure.
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The last major component once the piston is in is to place the piston head on top of the liner, again views of work carried out on these heads and the meticulous work involved in restoring them and bringing them back to the necessary specification involved 52 Sunday's of our co-ordinators time, the work involved lapping the valves, inspecting the valve guide bushes which had a very tight tolerance and if we found themover-sized we condemned the head, we condemned 4 heads along the way. All that is required now is for these to be torqued down, their alignment is determined in one dimention by the exhaust manifold.
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