Kit 16A and 16B - crankshaft, gears and flywheel

The last 2 months have brought Kits 16a and 16b..... there is not too much that can be done with these except to clean up the flywheel and the crankshaft and paint them, at least some primer and some undercoat. I am finding that the weather is getting a bit too cold for any top coating, so that can wait until spring. I guess the factory are sending out what they can as it’s obviously been a difficult time this year.

Not very exciting, but I may as well post pictures for future builders to look at.  I am priming the flywheel and the crankshaft. It will be easier to see any areas where I need to add a bit of filler to the flywheel casting if it has paint on it. I am not going t make it too perfect - it needs to look like it was cast.



I am going to paint it post office red on this side, but I am going to leave the edge bare.

Not very exciting, but again, this might help future builders, because a picture can be a lot clearer than the ISO drawings and the description, and if I may say, in the spirit of constructive criticism, there should be a lot more pictures of the sub-assemblies in the instructions. I have not done a steam engine before, and I imagine there are other builders in the same boat, so a few pictures are handy.  Of course, you can go looking for other builders threads and try to blow up relevant views, but a few pictures like this would not go amiss !!



The brass bearing blocks were a bit of a squeeze  to get into the strap,  so I don’t want to tighten it all up yet....I think perhaps I will wait to lap the bearing with the Timesaver, as I guess it should all be tightened up before that gets done.

It’s a long time since I posted anything into this topic but now that the hornplates are on, I have been able to fit the bearings and the crankshaft. I found that the adjusting block on the left hand bearing needed to be filed down a fair bit before it would fit, which was mentioned as a possibility in the instructions. Now that it’s all in and turning (not very freely yet) I will get the Timesaver lapping compound and work some magic (I hope)

Hi,
"Timesaver" is a brilliant product! I does EXACTLY what it says on the tin! Within 10 minutes or so you can have nicely bedded in bearings running very smoothly. It is a little expensive, but well worth the cost. I just bought a small tin of yellow medium for my Burrell Agri which was more than sufficient and still have some left! Brilliant!!
Rehardfs
Gregf

I have bought the Yellow Timesaver and started on the crankshaft- I am gradually tightening the bearing carriers as I go and hopefully it will be running very smoothly soon.

I put the slide bars on with the shims and did it all up tight…. Then I carefully measured the gap in several places and I also measured the cross head so that I could work out what extra shims I needed…. The crosshead was 20.15mm, so I shimmed an extra 0.3mm on all 4 of the top slide bar positions.



Then I assembled it all to see how it would run…. It was fairly smooth as I had already lapped in the crankshaft and the conrod bearing on the crankshaft…. Only problem was that the conrod was not very central:



So, off came the crankshaft and Inadded 2 of the shims to the right hand bearing carrier, as mentioned in the instructions, but now the bolts are too short, so I have fitted it temporarily without the washers and I will get some 25mm bolts, but it’s now central, and it runs quite nicely.



Now I will be taking it all off and it won’t go back until all the cladding is painted and put back.