As the weather forecast wasn’t that promising, the team got off to an early start. Paul Nowland fitted up both the brakestands with the overhauled valves. While in this area, Tony fitted the new driver's side sub floor ably assisted by Paul. This is a two man job with Tony inserting the bolts on the top side and Paul tightening up the nuts on the bottom side, or was it the other way round?
Graeme Kidgell continued with the drivers side injector feed pipe system, working through to the steam starting valve adjacent to the outer firebox wrapper. The last pipe that joins the steam manifold to the injector starting valve was trial fitted and to no surprise, wasn’t even close. After a few goes at heating the pipe with the oxy it was decided that it would be replaced and in actual fact the pipe was found to be suffering from fatigue cracks. For safety reasons both the drivers and fireman’s side pipes will be replaced with new.
Just before lunch the team moved onto the final adjustment of the leading pivot and the new 3 ½ inch AF socket, and inch drive ratchet made this labour intensive job slightly easier. Well only just. The adjusting nuts were backed off and re-set. The next task will be to fit the pivot locking plate with four off 1 1/8” BSW nuts.
While the crew stopped for lunch the rain started coming down and a couple of morning showers soon turned into constant deluge. At 14:00 hours it was decide to call it a day and go home to a hot cup of tea.
Alan Gardner
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The society operates rail tours out of Canberra with our heritage fleet of steam and diesel locomotives and rolling stock every few weeks.
To travel in style on any of our tours, or to learn more about our collection and operations, go to trains.org.au
To travel in style on any of our tours, or to learn more about our collection and operations, go to trains.org.au
Next Workday
Fundraising Appeal
$70,000 is the target we need to reach, before we can fund all the materials and services we need to complete the project. The next big ticket items on our shopping list will likely be piston and valve ringsand a new stoker trough... Don't forget about nuts, bolts and other sundry items that we buy almost every week to keep the project moving.
If you can spare a few bucks, please help us reach the target by clicking on this button.
If money is tight, why not come down and get your hands dirty instead. And remember, the more help we get, the sooner the Garratt will again grace the rails, for the enjoyment of old and young alike.
Finally I can announce that people who donate over $500 in total to Project6029, will qualify for a cab ride once 6029 is back in service. What an incentive! Anyone can qualify for this bonus, and those that have already donated are in the running. Just donate a total of $500 or more and you are in the queue...
How can you help 6029 get back on the rails?