Garden Railway Forum

Hi All,

So, I have a new addition to my stable; a nice Mamod SL3...
Looks like she's never been steamed, however when I steamed her, I noticed that water/steam was escaping out of the whistle.
No problem, I thought. I'll swap it out for the new high pressure valve and the original pressure valve for the new water top up valve (which I bought to go in the SL1K project - don't ask).
Still seems to be losing water from somewhere. I see the water literally drain from the boiler in around 30 seconds of running. Also, the pistons seem a bit drippy. Is that normal?!
How do I use the water top up valve? Seems really difficult to pump water into it. Am I being obtuse?!

Any help would be much appreciated as I'm tearing my hair out with it!!!

Also I'm using that fuel gel as I can't get solid fuel anymore. Should I dump the lot and fit my 3 wick meths burner?

Thanks,
Tim

Hi Tim,

if the water drains from the boiler I do not expect anything in the steam line or cylinders.
If you can, put compressed air to it (low pressure) and hold the whole loco into a bucket of water.
You can see where the air bubbles come from.
For a detailed search I use dishwasher liquid. Simply apply compressed air and put a few drops on pipe connections, boiler seams and any other possible leaks.
You will get lots of bubbles where the leak is.
I suspect a leak on the boiler joints.
The cylinders are cold when you start running, so the steam will condense. That´s normal.

Hope this helps.

Thank you!

I will give it a go tonight though I have a sneaking suspicion it may be around the reversing lever/block assembly...
It's a nut and bolt job by the looks of it anyway...

On a slight tangent, I fired my Hornby G100 Stephenson's Rocket (as I needed a break from the Mamod). I felt much better after!

I'm sorry but the only advice I can give is to sell the Mamod and buy a Roundhouse Millie second hand or a 'Janet' from https://www.evanssteamservices.co.uk/janet