BEV 551 Part 2

We had another BEV day on monday.

First up, we fetched the remaining wheels off. This was much easier than the first, probably because we knew how hard to hit them!
Here is the extractor. There are two threaded holes in the wheel bosses. I used a plate, two bolts and some soft packing. In this case I used aluminium billet, but any softer metal, or even hardwood, should do. The packing protects the axle end.

Jack and support the loco clear of the rail/floor by an inch or two. Put some plywood under the wheel you're about to attack, in case it needs a soft landing. Assemble as shown, then wind the bolts in to get some tension, making sure they don't bottom out in the threaded holes. If they do, put more packing in.
The wheel may need a few knocks with a soft face mallet to break the rust seal. After that, doing up the bolts alternately should pull it off the axle. Once it moves a bit, it comes off the taper and so is only held back by the key.

Next up, we unbolted the axle boxes. Removing the triangular plates behind each wheel:

We found a nut on a fine thread. Note the grub screw locking the nut in place-the sort of thing easily missed until you scrap your axle. Two came out fine, two broke and had to be drilled out. The nuts had to come off, as the slot in the frame for dropping them out is too narrow:

You can see the fill-in piece of metal under the axle end, and that the nut is removed. You can also see the waxy, gritty 80+ year old grease.

Next up, we tackled the axle keep plates. These are two flat bars that run under the frame, and hold pieces of metal that plug the gaps under each axle that allow them to come out. The bar also put back the strength lost by having 4 huge slots in your frame. The bolts here have taken the brunt of derailments and damp, yet we only had to angle grind 3 of them!

By the end of the day, we had this. The axleboxes are held in by one bolt at the top, so we're about ready to drop them out.