RE-Building my Lady Anne

[ptlrcecil]

A fireball XL5 jobbie then.

[bungle80a]

ERm, somthing like that! Put it this way, "get it outside...NOW!" was hollered when it started to seriously set fire to the workbench!

[TonyW]

I've done a similar job myself on an old Lady Anne and an old Dylan in my collection.



If you do decide to put new axles on it you will also need to get new wheels, cranks, crank pins and axle bearings. The old-style axles that your loco currently has are smaller (3/16 inch) than the current design (1/4 inch), hence the need for new axle bearings. You will need to drill the frames for the new bearings to fit. The bearings should have some Loctite 603 applied and then have the backs "squeezed" with an old ball bearing to flare out the back lip on the bearing, all to stop the bearing coming out or rotating in the frame hole. This may mean that you have to take the frames apart to do this.

You will also have to modify the slip-eccentric valve gear to take the larger axles. Roundhouse made a new design of slip-eccentric gear to fit the new axles, but I think these were all sold years ago.

While you are at it, it would probably be a good idea to have new coupling and connecting rods, and those from the current model of Lady Anne will fit your loco.

The current style of wheel has a boss on the back that contains the locking grub screw that is used when changing the gauge. Due to the width of the bosses the existing 4-pot burner will not fit as there is insufficient room between the wheels for one of the pots. When Roundhouse went to the current style of wheel on their meths locos they re-designed the meths burner to have only three pots, but numbers 1 and 3 were made larger in diameter, with number 2 remaining the same as those on your burner.

Finally, a word of warning about brass boilers.... DO NOT, and I repeat, DO NOT leave water in this boiler for any long length of time. The water reacts - slowly - with the brass and leeches the zinc out of it, leaving the copper behind but full of tiny holes. A friend's Roundhouse Pooter has just had a new boiler because he left it with the water in for a couple of years.