Achilles Report No25: More Loco Work...

Hi guys. Again, today, mug of tea in hand and with the heater on full blast, I was in the workshop working on the loco. Todays job was to remove the remaining bits of the LHS valve gear: specifically the crosshead, connecting rod and coupling rods. Regular readers will know that, during a Halloween run at CMES last October, "Achilles" was failed due to the gudgeon pin nut undoing itself during running. Unfortunately this could not be rectified on site at the time and so, when I got home I lock-tite'd it up until it could move no more. This quick fix worked brilliantly and the loco ran without fault during her November outing. However, thats the thing about lock-tite...its brilliant until you want to remove something that its holding on! The easiest way to remove the lock-tite is to heat it up with a blow-lamp until it flames...a sure sign that it has caught fire and thus lost its hold. You can then remove the offending article. However, today, I was having no such luck as even heating the nut up to maximum was having little effect. The transfer of heat through the crosshead however did cause the piston pin to lose its own lock-tite seal and fall out, allowing me to remove the entire ensemble and put the annoying crosshead on the bench in order to get a larger spanner onto it...Every cloud...

Below, the blow-lamp gets to grips with heating up the gudgeon pin nut in order to attempt to melt the Lock-tite...

My "Achilles" mug has been in regular use lately, especially since the rebuild began. The engine regularly finds herself staring at a picture of her on the mug of tea alongside her! With the loco now bare of valve gear on both sides I can concentrate on getting the bushes redone as they are removed from the rods.

Cheers guys - thanks for reading. The next report on "Achilles" will no doubt talk about the checking of the removed parts for wear. Thank you - Sam.