1. Charles Pooter (please also see the link to my Charles Pooter project under My Projects)

 

David Turner tackled the fitting of a Chuffer to his Roundhouse Charles Pooter. This is more complex than many as this loco is a "pot boiler" and the chimney flue extends down through the boiler. Here are his notes:

 

 

1. Turn loco on its back. Dismount the meths burner by unscrewing a single

screw at the rear and pulling out the split pin from the middle. Note that

the 'V' mounting that held the split pin has a screw to hold it on to the

chassis. This screw will need to be removed to release the boiler band and

allow the boiler to rise.

 

2. Remove the body shell. This is effected by unscrewing two screws on the

front footplate and two on the rear floor of the cab. If like mine your Pooter

is radio controlled, you may find access to these screws is restricted by the

R/C receiver if it is mounted on the cab rear wall. It probably will be since

this is the obvious place for it.

 

3. Before lifting the body shell you need to remove the dart handles from the

smoke box door . They merely pull out. In addition, if radio controlled, you will have to release one servo activating link from the regulator.

 

4. Now the body shell may be lifted off but may still be connected by an

umbilical cord of wire between the receiver and reversing servo. This should be

long enough to stay connected and still allow good access, since whoever fitted

it in the first place would have needed a good length to enable fitting of the

R/C.

 

5. Turn chassis upside down and unscrew single screw to release the boiler

band. In my Pooter, the superheater pipe is long and double coiled so that it

was not necessary to disconnect any pipe work. You may find in your model that

this is less easy and therefore you may have to disconnect one junction of the

lubricator at this stage.

 

6.The twin exhaust pipes are combined by a single thin walled sleeve that

rises up the chimney. This is lightly crimped at the bottom but releases easily

enough with a little squeeze side to side with pliers and pulls off. I found my

pipes set at different levels but soon realised that they could be levelled

without cutting. I was able to fit the Summerlands Chuffer without a problem and

it was easy enough to replace the boiler. While the two to one adapter fitted to

the chuffer is wide, it still fits up the chimney stack leaving reasonable room

around it. Note that in the Pooter,. the chimney pipe extends right through the

smoke box so from a sound point of view it ought to work as long as the 'organ

slot' is within this. Theoretically therefore, it could be better to cut the

exhaust pipes so that the adapter was lower, causing less obstruction in the

chimney stack. (The position will not be crucial as this is a pot boiler - probably best to aim to have the top of the Chuffer between 5 and 10mm from the top of the chimney CB)