After nearly a year-and-a-half delay, I finally got my live steam Accucraft K-28 running on rollers with no problems. I did notice several interesting things. The boiler takes about 850ml water, i.e. quite a lot, much of which is lost when one opens the blowdown valve after pressure has dropped enough to have the engine stop running with an open throttle. Obviously there is still a lot of pressure in the boiler. Perhaps it would be reasonable to wait for things to cool a bit before opening the blowdown valve. The port side cylinder drains a lot of oily water even with the drain cock in the "closed" position. Is there any way to tighten this up a bit, or does it make any real difference (other than loss of water). The tender pump hose is a real P.I.T.A. I may never use it, especially after reading all of the posts about the K-28 pump problems. I took the hose off and left the fittings. Does one really need to drain the steam oil out after a run? I opened the cock and let the water out until oil dripped. How fast is steam oil used up during running? Which runs out first; fuel, water or steam oil?
It is pretty exciting to finally get the thing going. Now I can't wait to get it on some track. And the coolest thing--my wife is pretty excited about this too!
Wilson
It is pretty exciting to finally get the thing going. Now I can't wait to get it on some track. And the coolest thing--my wife is pretty excited about this too!
Wilson