Technical

The OOLS locos use brass bushes for their bearings on the three sets of driving axles. Brass is not the hardest wearing material known to man!

This loco is a club DDE that has clocked up a lot of miles at various roadshow events over the last 10 years or so. At the recent Locomotion event, it was running fine, then suddenly lost power and went all lumpy. Eric was manning the repair bench at the time and diagnosed a worn out brass bush on the centre driving axle which had allowed the bevel gears to jump a tooth which in turn put the timing out. The video below was taken in this state before I did anything to the loco.

Once I had dismantled the loco, I could see that the vast majority of the play was in the brass bush, although there were some fair old wear marks…

Having received the parts from the OOLS Shop (Many thanks Nick) I can now repair the same and reassemble the locomotive. The superheater and safety valve assembly has to be unscrewed allowing access to the top hat, brass arm with the steel wiper arm underneath it at the top hat end and the gear with pin close to the gearbox . The top hat has 2 holes, 1 round for the whistle and the other a tear drop shape, this shape allows the increased control of steam as it is rotated. It is important to make sure the top hat hole is on the LHS, driver side, when positioned on its peg. Now it has to be aligned with the hole in the regulator base, doing this with a drill the size of the hole and juggling it until it drops into the steam feed hole beneath. This now sets…

Well it went alright, but it wouldn't stop. Silver Link. Something wrong here I thought. On examination I found the regulator drive rod wafting about in the breeze. It be broken, oh dear! I've toyed with the idea of making my own drive rod so long as I can identify the thread, maybe, maybe not, or maybe another visit to the club shop. Anyway I decided to strip the loco down for an overhaul, a clean and replace dodgy looking seals, etc. The Hornby rotary valve cover is showing age cracks so it will be replaced. Now white wheels on a locomotive look nice when they are clean, mine were decidedly not, so removing them 2 at a time they were washed using a paint brush in hot soapy water and now look (nearly) new.

Whilst searching for something an AI engine generated this as a means of applying steam oil

"The Mixing Ratio: Add exactly 2 drops of oil directly into the boiler via the filler neck before you inject the distilled water. The water will then emulsify the oil during boiling to lubricate the cylinders."

No mention of the normal method. As it would be easier, any thoughts?