Pennsylvania A3 Switcher (Kozo)

[Kim]

Chapter 33.6 – Suction Ring, Union Nuts, and Nipples

Now that I'm back from my trip, visiting my daughter and my grandkids, I've done a little puttering in the shop.  Over the last few days, I’ve made the last of the fittings for the water pipe on the engine.  All of these are repeats of previously made parts, with possibly slight adjustments to hole sizes and other dimensions, but essentially the same.  So, I didn’t take any detailed pics of making them.

But here’s a nice shot of all the little parts.  There are 7 union nuts of various sizes, seven nipples to match, and one donut, or suction ring, as Kozo likes to call it.


And just for fun, I took a picture of all the parts I’ve made for the water piping.


The next step, of course, is to connect all these fittings together with some copper tube!  How exciting will that be?

Thanks for looking in,
Kim

[crueby]

Welcome back to the shop!!  The elves and I were getting tired of reruns, glad there are new episodes now!

Thats a LOT of fittings!

 

[RReid]

As good as shop time is, quality time with family is even better. Hope you had a great time, Kim, but it is good to see your updates again!

[cnr6400]

  Wow, you've been busy Kim! Great looking fittings. Kozo may have called that donut a suction ring because he was dieting or quitting banjo playing...

[Kim]

Thanks Chris, Ron, and Jeff! 

Chris, the reruns can be somewhat boring since you already know the outcome!  On the plus side, that can reduce the tension when watching them.  Sometimes I prefer the reruns for that reason!

Ron, the family time was wonderful!  Too short, and too far between, but wonderful.

Jeff, both sound like plausible explanations. I'm leaning toward the diet one 

Kim

[Roger B]

To follow the others, that's a lot of fine fittings     

[Kim]

Thanks Roger! 

Kim

[Prowler901]

Hope your trip was enjoyable and relaxing.  Glad to see you back in the shop.

Todd

[Kim]

Thank you, Todd! 
I'm not sure relaxing is the word for anything involving air travel, but seeing our kids & grandkids was certainly enjoyable! 

Kim

[Kim]

Chapter 33.7 – Assembly

With all the fittings made for the water pipes, it was time to get started.  And the first thing I wanted to do, was to make sure that my feed water check valves held against the boiler pressure.  That seemed important!  So I connected one up, and I had no idea if it held because I had great gobs of air escaping from around the steam manifold where the whistle is attached.  (Archival photo of the Steam Manifold.)


I remembered that there was a little leak there, but I also remembered thinking that with some good sealing, like with the 518 Loctite Paperless Gasket goop, I’d be able to clear that up. And now was the time to do it before I moved on much further.

Well, it wasn’t so simple.  I just couldn’t find the leak.  I checked the ports that were plugged in the manifold.  Still leaking.  I removed the water sight gauge, it still leaked.  I removed the whole steam manifold and replaced it with a plug.  Still leaking.  I tried sealing the plug with Loctite 518. I waited overnight for it to set and tried it this morning.  Still leaking a ton of air.

At this point, I was really getting worried that I’d somehow managed to crack that solder joint around the manifold bushing.  I was having visions of stripping everything down and doing more soldering on the boiler.  This made me feel rather disheartened, to say the least.

I was using soapy water and whatever I could to find the leak, but still I couldn’t pinpoint where the air was coming from.  But I could clearly feel a lot of air blowing out around the manifold busing.

As a last-ditch effort I tried submerging the whole back end of the boiler and the engine in a bucket of water.  BOY was it leaking!  But the good news was that it became obvious that the leaks were happening around the blower bushings, NOT the manifold bushing.

It was then that I finally remembered that I hadn’t put the paper gaskets in on the blower bushings.  Duh.  So I did that, and… problem solved!  No leaks.  It's odd to me that the air coming out the top blower busing felt so much like it was coming from the steam manifold busing.  Shows how accurately my fingers can feel air movement! 


Well, I was quite elated that I wasn’t going to have to go back to boiler making!  That was NOT my favorite part of this build, I’ll have to say.

With the leak issue resolved, I went on to test the water feed check valves on either side of the front of the boiler.   I tested them one at a time.  The first one worked great, once I tightened the cap end that held the spring.


The second one leaked.  I tried looking at it with magnifying visors and I could see some defects in the ball seat.  So I took it apart and re-cut a sharp ball seat with the D-bit, did the ball hammer whack trick to create the final seat, and tried it again.  Success!  It worked! 


With the check valves verified, I went back and reintroduced each of the items I’d removed in my earlier troubleshooting.  Here's after I’d reattached the much maligned steam manifold.  No leaks!


And now the sight gauge.  No leaks! Yay! 


And finally, for today, I took a short video showing the whole assembly under air pressure. It not only holds air, it still moves back and forth just like it’s supposed to!  I have the reversing lever disconnected from the mechanism, so I have to move that control rod with my hand. It goes forward and backward.  The blower valve sends air to the blower, and the whistle button works. Though, you'll notice that I didn’t re-attach the whistle, so when I push the whistle button all you hear is a rush of air coming out of the hole.  But the whistle wasn’t the point.  The fact that it is all air tight – THAT’s the point! And I couldn’t be happier! 
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl1mHM1utyw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl1mHM1utyw</a>

Thanks for looking in,
Kim

[RReid]

Excellent Kim! Nice job of trouble shooting, glad you found that leak before it led you down the wrong rabbit hole!

[cnr6400]

  That is great news Kim! Major milestone. Well done. 

[crueby]

Fantastic!  Glad it was something  easy!   

[tzkelley]

I was biting my nails reading about the boiler leak--glad it was an easy fix! Nice progress!

[Kim]

Thanks Ron, Jeff, Chris, and Doug! 

It was a nail-biter for sure!  I was so happy when it all came out so well! 

Kim