Belly tank front bracket fitting

Finally getting round to fitting the belly tank and have a quick question regarding the bracket that attaches to the boiler. Should this bracket be in contact with the boiler or should it be placed over the cork and cleading? The reason I am asking is that my boiler is one of the few that have the holes drilled in the wrong place, they are further out and I have a longer bracket. If the bracket has to be flush with the boiler (which I think is correct) then I will have to take the cleading off and cut a bit off it so that the bracket will fit in the slot. I'll then probably have to paint the cleading again. As you can probably guess, I did not check the fit of the bracket before putting the cleading on!

Any thoughts/experience appreciated.

Was really pleased to get the engine running on air. Initially there were quite a few 'holes' that had to be filled until it could finally maintain pressure and run! Can't wait for the last kit!!

Hi

The longer bracket is needed as there is a mod to the belly tank position. The tank was moved forward and down to allow clearance.
So the brackets on the hornplates should have an extra row.

Yes the cleading needs trimmed. I carefully did it with a dremel and plenty of water to keep cool and just touched up the edge.

The bracket has to be metal to metal as it supports the steering and weight of the bellytank. Also supports the hornplate to boiler connection.

If you have a welder you can do what I did with Mikes road loco. Cut the existing bracket, put the boiler fittings on and the other bit on the belly tank bracket and made a fillet and welded it in.


P.S. Forget everything I said. Its not a DCC. Me spouting poop. But it might be the same.

Hi Alan, Yes the bellytank front bracket must be bolted directly onto the boiler so unfortunately you will have to alter your cladding etc.. to suit, I had one of the same batch of boilers but rather than use the modified bracket I opted to re drill and tap the boiler so as I could use the original bracket supplied and then blanked off the old holes with engine studs and ground them almost flush, steamed the engine 5 times now with very few problems apart from the odd steam leak here and there.

Cheers Tim

P.S> by the way the odd steam leak was not from the old holes I blanked off !!!, they are fine

Thanks for the replies. I thought the bracket would have to be flush against the boiler so will make the modifications this weekend.

Cheers.