Fireman Side Cylinder Sporadically Working
Hello folks,
As the title states I have a Mallard locomotive that is not working properly. Specifically, the fireman side cylinder is not wanting to stroke constantly unlike the engineer side. I took the cylinder block off and determined the end caps are fine and the engineer piston is making a good seal. I noticed something was amuck when the model was not wanting to run on its rolling road during my club's last show. It will run if I pick it up and let the engine free wheel with no problems. What confuses me is the O rings look identical and the model was serviced less than a year ago by y'all's club. I have re-timed it but with the same results even on a level section of track. Any advice and or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Happy Railroading,
Camryn
There are 4 tiny O-rings between the rotary valve block and the cylinder "saddle" - are they all OK?
Are you able to blow out (with compressed air) the passageways both in the rotary valve block and the cylinder block ? The O-rings sit one on each of these passageways.
Ideally, you want to reach the stage that putting compressed air into the valve passageway on the front of the rotary valve block sees the piston move smartly one way and then repeat with the other hole for that cylinder and see the piston move the other way.
The passageways are 0.6mm diameter, so it doesn't take much to block one or just partially impede the flow of steam and that will ruin the loco's performance.
Hope this helps,
Good Luck,
David