Cylinder Block Fitting

Had an exciting day last wenesday when I received my bolier. I managed to get it all cleaned down and painted and then spent about 6-7 hours fitting the smoke box onto it. It was a sod of a job but finally managed it ok, it all felt very gratifying as there are the beginnings of the shape of what is to come.
I have built myself a trolley, which reading through many of the threads, seems to be the thing to do and it is immediately very obvious why. So now I am trial fitting the cylinder block onto the boiler which raises a few questions. I have laid the gasket on the boiler and trial fitted the two uppermost engineer studs into the top of the boiler and placed the cylinder block over them. I have worked my way round the l/h side of the cylinder block (looking from the rear) and all but two of the studs start to screw in a little way by hand without a problem as all the hjoles line up ok. The two that don't may only need the gasket relieving to make them fit.



However, on the r/h side the majority of the holes seem to be a little out of line





Question: The existing holes are 9mm in diameter, would it be acceptable to drill out the oringinal holes on the r/h side to 9.5mm or 10mm to make them fit ok? I believe that is what I need to do to make them fit ok.

Hi John
Before you commit to opening up holes in the block, try putting the nuts on the top centre (12 o'clock)pair of studs at each side of the block and gently tighten them.
This should pull the block down onto the gasket and line up the holes.
As for the gasket when you take it off again you will see that those 2 holes are out of line, I had the same problem.
lay a rule along the edge of that line of holes and it will show how far out they are i think on my gasket it was almost half a hole.
I sent a picture of the gasket to support at STW when i found the problem, unfortunately it's on my phone so its a real pain to post on here.
Simon C

Thanks Simon I will give your idea a try

John

I posted my experiences with this part of the build in another thread, but the bottom line is that every stud must be able to screw in a couple of turns easily BEFORE you slap any Foliac around and tighten it all down. In my case, this involved putting on and taking off the cylinder dozens of times whilst I hand filed every single hole in the areas where I could see it was binding. I don’t think I would want to fit one side and then drill the other side.. As Simon says, I would attach the two “12 o’clock “ studs and then see which of the others will screw in…. Then work on the ones that won’t - taking off and refitting the cylinder till it all fits….

Thanks for the advice Milford