Don Young Adams O2

I'm currently building Don Young's 5" Adams O2 and I've got as far as constructing both of the side tanks which are completed and reread for final soldering. The right-hand tank an auxiliary lever mounted on it in front of the reversing lever to operate the drain cocks. I've drilled the holes in the tanks for the fulcrum and keep plate but now I come to assemble it this lever will clearly foul the reversing lever and the rods will also interfere with eachother. I have looked at one example that was displayed at the Midlands in 2016 and the builder seems to have left off this right-hand drain cock lever and I presume he is using the sanding lever on the left hand tank to operate the drain cocks. Has anybody else had this problem and if so could they contact me to advise what they used as a solution? I've measured and measured and everything seems to be in the right place so I think it is an error on the drawing.Thanks for your help

Edited By Peter Venn on 18/03/2021 08:42:00

You are quite correct in your findings; they do clash horribly. I came to the conclusion that the O2's mechanical linkage to the draincocks was dreadful; I think Don Young mentions somewhere (I can't find it in his ME articles) that the full-sized linkages were a nightmare, so reducing the size of it by a factor of 12 looks like sheer stupidity! Same goes for the sanding; I've just made the visible bit over the front splashers. Not a good idea to have sand on small locos in my opinion.

To that end I've made some automatic Bill van Brocklin type drain cocks for mine. In which respect I pondered for some time whether the business part of the draincocks should be level or be made parallel to the inclined cylinders. Level won, so that's how I made them, but whether they work or not is still a question for the future.

Another option would be steam-operated drains; there have been several ideas published on designs of this in ME. It can be a lot easier to route bits of pipe than mechanical linkages.

I've also made my bunker into an extra water tank, with suitable balance pipes under the footplate. This obviates the need for that strange cross-pipe affair just behind the backhead.

Nigel - Do you have a link showing details of the Bill van Brocklin type of drain cocks?

Thank you very much for your reply Nigel. I am so glad that it is not just me being stupid. I think I might try using the sanding lever to operate the drain cocks because I agree with you that the sanders would never work anyway and they seem rather pointless but obviously the outside needs to be there for the cosmetics. I am not familiar with Bill van Brocklin drain cocks but I will do a little research.

By the way I was most impressed by your article in model engineer regarding the T-sections and I will certainly consider a similar plan (unless you want to rent me your jig!) Kind regards Peter

The design I used for the cylinder drains was found here:

http://ibls.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Automatic_Cylinder_Cocks

Thanks for the link but apparently the design is not suibable for use with piston valves or where they cannot be mounted in the horizontal mode