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[IanR]

My club is saying I should blank off as many of the fittings as possible before doing the hydraulic test. Does anyone know what the thread in the top of the cylinder where the pipe from the lubricator connects is?

[LiveSteam]

Hi Ian

You shouldnt need to worry about that one as its the otherside of the regulator which will be blanked anyway. The only ones I blank are the clacks for my hydraulic and remove the guage and use the tap to shut the open pipe. Thats using a commercial inspector. Although when I took my boiler for the 5" loco to our club for its pressure test they were happy for the clacks to be left on as long as they didnt leak, they did to start with but a little tap and they sealed up fine.

[IanR]

Thanks. I hadn't thought about that. Makes sense it would be other side of regulator.

[Robfishman]

Mines a 4" and we only blanked off the safety and regulator for the hydraulic. Passed first time.

[IanR]

I took it to show them last week to get advice on what they require. We're going to try with just blanking off the whistle which I haven't fitted yet, the outlet for the pressure gauge and also fitting the water gauge glass. We'll see if the various globe valves and the valves on the clack hold enough.

[LiveSteam]

Ah yes good point, forgot about the whistle also realised that actually, as Rob said, we used the clack valves rather than blanking them. Saw the whistle blank this weekend in my box of bits and realised then

[ejparrott]

Which boiler test are you presenting it for? If the repeat 1.5xWP test non of the fittings should be removed, expect the safety valves, which I prefer to see clamped and not removed anyway.

[IanR]

For some reason my club are not accepting the certificate that came with the boiler and are insisting on doing their own test. In fact they are saying I should have presented the bare boiler for testing before fitting anything! However they are accepting a test of 1.5xWP pressure though as it has been tested once already by the manufacturers.

Does anyone know what thread the connection for the pressure gauge is? as I need to make a cap for that.

[ejparrott]

I think your boiler tester perhaps needs to go and read his green book. There is no reason why you should have presented them with a bare boiler at all, it's a commercially built boiler, with a commercial shell test!!!! You will need to do a 1.5xWP hydraulic test with the fully built up boiler, and then a steam test. Even if STW had supplied you with a fully built up boiler and a 1.5xWP cert, in order to get a steam test cert you must have a club 1.5xWP hydro test, we're not allowed to mix the certs.

[LiveSteam]

For some reason my club are not accepting the certificate that came with the boiler and are insisting on doing their own test. In fact they are saying I should have presented the bare boiler for testing before fitting anything!

One reason I opted for a commercial inspector, while there is a cost associated with it they seem far more reasonable than some clubs I've talked to when I was looking for an inspector.

[IanR]

Yes I had thought of going the commercial inspector route to save all the bother of dealing with the club. But as they've agreed to do 1.5 X working pressure with all the fitting I've already put on I decided to stick with it. I then realised that the work I was doing to blank off the remaining openings would allow me to test run on air.

I actually achieved it today!


Initially when this was filmed I had to keep my finger over the opening where the pressure gauge syphon connects as I couldn't get the union nut to start on the thread. I've since removed the back head manifold and run a die down the thread and have now connected the pressure gauge. With most of the leaks sealed now it runs like the clappers. it even turns over with about 20psi on the clock and the regulated shut. So I need to look at the regulator to stop it letting by. All in all if feels really great to have reached this milestone and actually see my engine working.

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