So now I had it running great, and sounding good, I could keep an eye on the water level through the huge sight glass, when it got low I could top it up with the pump, however I can't top it up when it is in steam, when I pump it blows the water out of the top of the safety valve, I get around this by stopping the engine, turning off the gas and then topping up the boiler while it is still roasting hot, the first pump sometimes has a little amount come out of the safety valve, but it stops after the first pump and fills up the boiler, once up to the recommended height in the safety glass, I just relight the gas burner and away we go, the loco is still holding enough heat and pressure to operate.
I have had over 45 minutes of running on one tank of gas! And one tender of water, And only stopped twice to top up the boiler. The loco can run for hours constantly without any problems, or singed eyebrows!
However there was still one big problem, and it was a massive one!
I run on sm32 and this is a G1 45mm loco, now you are probably reading this thinking you stupid **** why did you buy it!, well after the first steam up I did wonder myself, but now it was running great it was time to see if I could convert it to dual gauge sm32/45.
This was where I was advised by quite a few folk it couldn't be done and I was wasting my time!
Now comments like these normally fire me up to prove them all wrong, and indeed I did!
Here are some pics of the underside of the loco and tender, they both had metal plates that are attached at each end (the tender one is now missing)
These hold in the wheels, We removed the plate and all the drive wheels from the loco, the wheels were then removed from the axles and new hubs with grub screws were made, the wheels were machined to accept the new hubs, the G-scale wheel flanges were turned down slightly so they would fit on sm32 track without fouling the sleepers, the plate that secures the wheels/axle blocks into place was then slimmed down so it could fit between the back to back of the reset wheels at 32mm, the loco was fairly simple to do, but the wheels are of a poor quality and can be a pain to machine, the guy that did mine has done another since and doesn't really want to do anymore!
Now this brings me onto the tender, this is the part that is a bit of a pain in the ****
Agin the plate was removed, the two axles were then removed, you can now see the chassis frames, buffers and axle mounts are all in one casting, not good!
The solution was to remove the green tender body from the chassis and mill out the mounts that the axles locate into, once machined new axle blocks were made to hold the axles, again the wheels were machined and new adjustable hubs were made and secured with grub screws, the axle blocks are just a little bit slimmer than the wheel set when it is adjusted to 32mm, the axles themselves are just a little bit slimmer than the distance between the frames, this allows the wheels to be re-gauged at 32 or 45mm with a tiny amount of slop, the axle blocks were then secured under the milled out chassis and the tender body was refitted.
The loco runs great on both gauges, and gets a lot of appreciation around the 16mm circuit for being pretty much a one off, (the second frank s that was modified was only set at 32mm)