The kit, as far as I can tell, was always designed to be driven on the rear axle. Seems nuts to me, but I think Mr Mitchell expected the chassis to be built with compensation rather than springs. It’s of that kind of vintage, anyway.
Pecking away at my List of Things To Do.
Injectors. Generic brass castings come in the box, and after some intense peering at shadowy photos I realised they were more or less actually correct. A little rearrangement of one of the cast pipes, and reinstating a copper one for the drain, and we are good to go. The real ones are slightly set further inboard, but I reckoned the extra help and protection of the steps were worth the slight compromise. Simply blob soldered to the floor, and the copper drain pipe then formed to sit along the bottom step.
Oh, yes, I made up and fitted the steps yesterday. The cab steps are shy of several rivets, and I formed the rather obvious kink back between the lower pair of steps, and added some scrap etch reinforcing behind. It’s nice to see things beginning to actually hang down from the hanging bars!
Still trying to work out the rear sandboxes. As ever, no two engines are the same, with two distinct flavours evident in photos. Of course, the parts supplied don’t quite match the engine I’m trying to simulate, but that’s life.