I decided to crack on and get the DJH 7F back into correct right hand drive condition!

As mentioned in the previous post, the model as acquired by me was a bit of a dog's dinner in that it

had been incorrectly numbered in the 1925, left-hand drive series, whereas the DJH castings are only

good for the first batch of locos, with small boilers and right--hand drive. However, the model had somehow

ended up with the reversing lever on the "wrong" side for the boiler, so it was neither one thing nor the

other!

Here's the result after a couple of evening's remedial work: 

OK. it's not pretty - but the scars will soon disappear beneath another coat of black! Relocating the reversing lever was a pain, and resulted in total destruction of the white metal castings

and linkage for the lifting arms (to which the lever had been incorrectly attached - it wouldn't work that way) so after the damage was inflicted, I rebuilt the necessary details in brass. It's

all very "looks OK from 3 feet away" but that was also true of the DJH bits so it's no worse than before, and at least it's on the correct side. in reality, the reversing lever tucks down between

the frames a short distance aft of the visible part of the linkage, so this is how I've now fixed it.

While I was it ait, I also filed off most of the pipework on the front of the boiler, which was too wimpy to look the part. I think it's a vacuum ejector, but whatever it is, the DJH representation

was too low-relief compared to what is a prominent piece of plumbing, and very evident in photos of 7Fs. The details were rebuilt using brass, wire and plastic, and a fair bit of squinting not

just at photos, but also the Bachmann model. I know, shoot me. I also removed the handrails along the boiler, as on the real thing they did double-duty as a thicker pipe, so a replacement was

made up from brass and split pins.

I mentioned a lingering tight spot in the chassis. I couldn't live with it, so further dismantling ensued. The basic 0-8-0 chassis ran freely with just the coupling rods, so the problem had to be in the motion somewhere, but it was a real swine to spot. Eventually I realised that one of the connecting rods was just contacting the motion bracket during its travel, just enough to add a bit of resistance at slow speed, but which was smoothed out once the loco was running normally. I filed back some extra clearance and all was well. There's still a small cyclic tendency in the running at low speed, but it can only be in the gearing, so I'm assuming it will "improve with running-in" as Railway Modeller always promised would happen. Weirdly, although I filed a flat spot onto the driving axle for the grub screw, i found that the running got a bit better when I eased it "off" the flat spot. Go figure!