Garden Railway Forum

Right chaps an update.

I've spoke to Mark at GRS & he has told me to cut some of the silicone tube on the goodall valve to shorten it. Its tight sometimes & makes the goodall valve stops working.

The oil issues isn't an issue as such. It uses very little oil so that's a bonus.

I'm going to give the valve a cutting tonight & see if it can make it work any better.

Apologies Simon,
I'm away from home and not checking in often. I got my bottle from the UK Regner dealer, who's name escapes me at the moment *edited to add https://www.gardenrailways.co.uk/. Not sure why the tubing on that bottle works but not the tubing on my unbranded top up bottle, but it did solve my issues. Good luck with your experiments

Phil,

I've got a bottle winging it's way to me from Strikealite. Unfortunately the regner dealer is out of stock of top up bottles.

Right, following Marks advice at GRS I've done a modification to the goodall valve by taking off a slice of the silicone tube. Unfortunately at the moment I cannot take a picture as my phone died & it's now here on charge by my bed. Basically the tube is too long & needs to be shortened so that water can just squeeze through. I will add a few photos of my modification tomorrow. I have steamed the hunslet a couple of times this evening to get her run in & whilst I still get a spray off the goodall the mods seem to work.

With the top up working I've discovered the best way to fire the little hunslet this evening.

First set the burner so It has a rasp sound. My usual method of firing most locos is to turn the gas right down once the pressure is achieved but doing this with the hunslet seems to drop pressure quickly & you get a stall. The loco seems to need a push off everytime & doesn't seem to gather enough pressure to move off its self no matter how the burner is set.

One thing I have noticed is that if you let the loco blow off I usually get a massive burst of steam & water shoot up out of the safety valve which puts the burner out. I tend now to let it get close to 60psi then open the regulator & clear out the cylinders.

Once done the little hunslet settles to around 40psi & will chug nicely around my track. Its a bit undulating in places so it does stop if pressure drops & needs a little push to restart. It flys off afterwards & will run at rather swift pace. I'm hoping with another few hours running it'll have got loosened off & may steam a little better.

It's still nowhere near Accucraft or Roundhouse but I am still happy with her running round the garden. I think I still have more lessons to learn with this one regarding firing.

Interesting. Definitely keep me posted how you get on. John had mentioned the same to me before I had steamed mine, that many of the valves had the tubing cut too long & just need trimming slightly.

Clearly I don't fully understand how the valve works. I figured the tubing seals the hole in the brass plug when acted on by boiler pressure, but that applying a greater pressure from the other side, with a filler bottle, overcame this pressure and allowed water past the tubing and into the boiler.

My tubing is cut slightly longer than in your pictures. If you manage to get it working please post pictures of your cut tubing & I'll do the same!

Hey up Ted,

I cut mine last night & it's working, I still get spray back but it's filling the boiler, you can tell by the spikes on the pressure gauge & water gauge glass.

Any chance you can post a pic of how short you cut the tubing on the valve? I'll try the same!

Sure Ted

I will post a picture today,

I've steamed her about 6 times now & she's loosening up now, I had the burner set higher & it seems to run miles better, the safety valve lifted correctly too whilst running. I've a feeling this one needs a little more fire to get the best results. She started off from a stall without me giving her a shove.

An observation on the Goodall Valve pictured. Does the hole in the valve go all the way through the valve body? The water should have 2 openings at the bottom of the valve for the water to pass through. Accucraft's Goodall valves use this arrangent. I have bought an aftermarket unit and it was not drilled through. By only having one opening it made the required pumping pressure from the pump bottle much harder. I drilled the valve body and it helped greatly. Might take a look and see if this was done. I have 10 engines, and all have the Goodall valve cross drilled and they work great.
The tubing as shown should be shorter and not be over the bottom edge of the valve.
Charles M.

Ted,

Here's a picture of the modification I did to the silicone tubing.
Hopefully it helps.

Definitely does, thanks!

Hey Simon. Are you able to pump water through your Goodall valve with the valve removed from the boiler, as in the pic? I've cut the tubing on mine to a similar length to yours, but still can't get any water through it with a syringe. It just seems to me like the tubing fits too tightly around the valve body. Then it occurs to me that perhaps, when hot, the tubing is more pliable and allows water through more easily? I wont get to steam mine until next weekend at least, so curious if yours works "ex-vivo" so to speak?

Evening Ted,

I've never done it with the goodall removed from the boiler since I did the mod. What I did was take advice & buy a proper water refill bottle. The one I ordered was a regner one which is still to arrive.
I have managed to get my roundhouse bottle to fill the boiler though so to speak. I cut the end of my filler bottle which is a good few years old as the pipe end had warped a bit with the heat of live steam boilers. It's still not perfect & does give a spray back from the goodall but it is filling the boiler also. I know because when the safety valve starts feathering & I fill water its stopping the feathering of steam plus the gauge glass is moving.

When the regner bottle arrives I will do another test to see if it works any better. I have picked up this with GRS, personally I think its a poorly designed goodall valve & could do with refinements especially as the model is in accucraft territory regarding price.

On the up shot though, I've had mine in steam 8 to 10 times now & I am starting to get to know how to fire it well. She runs best when the burner is just giving a rasp you can hear, any lower it looses pressure. Once the gas is set, the regulator hardly needs touching for it to move off, don't be tempted to push it right down or it will go at the speed of the light down the track.

One tip when steaming the open cab version is to keep both the sliding doors on the cab back open, it improves airflow on the burner.

Hope that helps

Simon

Hmm. Not sure my experience is the same as yours. Mine needs VERY little gas flow to maintain pressure. Maybe partly a result of my having a lighter load behind it? If anything I have a slightly hard time getting the safety valve not to lift, but I think that will come with practice.

Mine is now running very well. A boiler fill lasts ~ 10 minutes, and I think a gas fill will probably be good for ~ two boiler fills once I figure out the Goodall valve. A solution is en route from GRS for that.

Good morning,

A year on how are you finding your respective locos? I’ve seen a secondhand one come up for sale that really caught my eye and wondering about your thoughts after a longer period of owning them.

Many thanks