3863 - Hornby conversion

As previously mentioned at the weekend, I have been working on converting 3863 to P4.

The initial conversion at the weekend showed that the crank pin nuts on the lead axel fouled the crosshead, and that the drive gear was loose on the axle.

I initially attempted to cure the latter with an application of loctight, however it still persisted. I have now stripped it down and attempted to resolve through the application of additional knurling to the axle (attacking with a xuron cutter) which appears to have done the trick.

The lead crank pin nuts were filed down, and the crank pin sleeve reduced to match the rod. Upon refitting it still fouled the plastic mounting bracket that supports the crosshead, so some careful material removal was required (it still needs even more to get a reliable joint!)

Upon reassembly I noticed that the 2nd axle on the right hand side has a the wrong sleeve fitted to the crank pin (which means it now fouls), so another dismantle and reassemble is needed before fitting that part.

Hopefully this will be the final work to get the loco working...

Moving onto 3215, I finally made it to the Yate modelshop on the way home from work today and picked up a pack of HMRS GW loco transfers. So finally 3215's tender has been branded up. Given the loco was delivered right at the point of nationalisation I have decided to put the early British Railways logo in GW typeface on one side of the tender (for something a little different) while sticking with the post war G W R on the other.

While I was at it the buffer beam numbers were added. So now I just need to get some plates ordered...