The little digger… she goes!!

Now we’d love nothing better than to tell you we’re not only track builders, we’re mechanic and hydraulic extraordinars, but we’re not exactly sure why it now works but didn’t before. It’s likely that we cleared the issue in one of the many valve cleanings earlier this week and just didn’t quite cycle it sufficiently to remove an airlock, however said issue is no longer and its back to its normal self, actually seems slightly better.

This morning began with another 8 fishplate changes and trimmings near Bendigo Road, however the rain beat us by 9am, so off to Castlemaine we headed.

Once we’d established it was a goer, we very promptly set about putting it all back together. Strangely, this occurred much more quickly than the disassembly.

Prior to putting the covers back on, we did a full oil and filter change (much easier access).

We’re yet to give it a real test. However, just around the Yard at Castlemaine, we were seeing the machine behaving much better than it had for at least 12 months. Tuesday, we’ll give it a proper run, dropping out and inserting sleeper plates out at Boundary Trk. Check back Monday for workday details.

We shared the Castlemaine workshop today. At the other end of the shed, the retubing of the J class was reaching the final phases, a cold water test was being undertaken, with any weeping tubes expanded a little more to seal up the tube plate/tube joins.

By the day’s end, they very successfully had the boiler holding water. No doubt there will be more on this in the Mechanical Blog. However, it’s looking very likely that they’ll be completing a hydrostatic test next week! A big step forward, congrats!

In a day that can only be described as a journey of pure excitement, we changed 50 pair of 6 hole fishplates for 4 hole fishplates. All between Maldon and Woodlocks Lane.

Unfortunately as we’re out of fishplates, it was a case of remove the plates, trim with the rail saw and then install the shortened fishplates back to where they came from. It actually didn’t quite work out like that, we tried to cut a few lengths ahead to prevent everyone having to work too near the saw, but that was the logic.

This is all in aid of installing concrete sleepers, as the long 6 hole angle plates foul the concrete sleepers fastenings, however the 4 holers fit nice between sleepers, now a very tried and tested method we employed between Muckleford and Castlemaine during the re-railing.

So we’ve not only got several thousand more fishplates to remove, cut and reinstate, it’ll likely be a lengthy process, but we can comfortably do the 50 pair in a day, however it is hard going.

We’ll continue on with this tomorrow morning, starting just near Bendigo Road from around 8.15am, however there is rain forecast, so when / if it arrives, we’ll journey through to Castlemaine where we will continue working on the Excavator.

We had a rather frustrating day today, we did manage to get the fuel and hydraulic tanks free enough to get to what we’d hoped were the offending valves, however they were as good as new and most certainly not full of rubbish or stuck.

We then did so well that we reassembled all of the (mainly while it was still fresh in the memory!) and tested again with no noticeable difference, possibly a very minor improvement but that is probably just down to fresh oil. Certainly still not good enough to use.

Unfortunately this takes us back to the drawing board a bit, it’s either going to be a very serious issue inside the main control valve block or a very minor issue with one of the many aftermarket components – however none of that has drawings so it’s a very slow process of tracing hoses. Hopefully if we keep plodding on a few Monday / Tuesday’s for a while we’ll find it, it’s just going to take a while.

In unrelated matters, we’ll be working out on the track, just outside Maldon Yard on Thursday, changing fishplates in preparation for installing concrete sleepers. Meeting at Maldon at 8am or just out the way from about 8.05am onwards.

Well, we’ve now got parts on order for the Hyundai excavator, hopefully these will be with us in around a fortnight’s time, but they do need to come from overseas so it’s a little bit of luck as to the exact date. Its ended up being slightly cheaper to just buy the whole reduction box for the slew motor than the bits that are needed to fix it, so at least it’ll be a very quick re-assembly task now.

We’ve made the decision to capitalise on this down time to strip apart the takeuchi, with a good portion of work started today, inside the loco shed at Castlemaine, working under a roof with lighting is just a whole new concept and we can recommend it!

In the strip down process we’ve found a few other issues (such as perished radiator overflow hoses etc… ) that we’ll tend to while it’s in bits. We did find the Anti-Drift valve (a complicated piece of kit to stop the boom moving unless it’s told to.. which has about 10 components, several of which are the likely culprits) portion affixed to the control valve had a broken bolt, which had allowed for water to ingress and actually seize a small piston, we were hopeful of this being the issue, but it isn’t, however it will be a factor and is likely the reason for the failure of a relief valve which is of course directly below it… but can’t be accessed without now removing the fuel and hydraulic tanks!

So, we’ll be working through that issue tomorrow, removing more gear to get to the relief valves.

Because we will be focussing on this primarily tomorrow, there won’t be a formal workday. However, as always, you’re still welcome to join, but do expect there to be times that are very quiet. No doubt the workshop next door could use an extra pair of hands in the quieter moments.

Meeting at Castlemaine from 8.30am, however we will have proper workdays on the track on Thursday / Friday, as hopefully we’ll just be waiting for parts by then.