Pack 7 - Stage 36. Steam turbine and fitting the engines!

[Mark, The Master Modeller]

Stage 36 gives us the rear section of engine room floor, the steam turbine and condensers.

Take the steam turbine and two condensers and screw them together.  The condensers are engraved L & R to aid identification.

Take the shorter steam pips and fit them to the longer steam pipes.  There is a D shaped peg and hole to ensure correct alignment.  Furthermore, the pegs and holes are different sizes to make sure you don't get the left and right sides crossed over.

Push the pipes into the condensers.  They only go in one way round, but you don't need to glue them as they are quite a firm fit.  Make sure they go fully home or you'll have trouble fitting the pipes to the engines.

Fit the step turbine base to the engine room floor.  It's held in with 3 screws.  Make sure you get it the right way round as it will fit either way round.

Fit the rear section of engine room floor.

This is held with three screws fitted from underneath.

Now we start to fit the engines to the engine room floor.  The instructions start with getting you to check to see if you have a gap between the plinth and the stands.  If you do, you need to remove the base of the engine, remove bearing cap 3P and/or 29H, turn it round and reassemble the engine.  I you recall, I mentioned in stage 3 that the bearing cap was shown the wrong way round in the instructions, and I corrected it at the time.  

The instructions also say to check the the flywheels are on the right way round.  The easiest way to check this is to test fit a prop shaft into the flywheel.  If it fits, you're good.  If it won't go in you will have to prise off the flywheel are refit it the other way round.

Once you're happy that the engines are all correct, you can fit them to the engine room floor.  They are held with 4 screws, and I suggest a drop of lubricant in the screw holes in the engine base as they are metal and the screws can be reluctant to fully tighten.

Make sure that this pipe in inserted into the hole in the engine stand.  The instructions mention this at the end of the stage, but it's easier to get the pipe int eh hole when putting the engines in place.

Fit both engines in place, then insert a shaft to check that they turn freely.  You may need to loosen the screws holding the thrust blocks if the shaft is stiff.  I found that one was OK, but the other needed the thrust block adjusting.  

This completes the stage.