Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

I quite a while ago managed to bag a relatively rare engine, and that even over here in Europe as well.
A #10 is pretty common, but an original 220V version from the 1970s isnīt an everyday find.

On top it would appear to have been a salesmanīs engine, since it has a straight cut front on the base, and clear signs of legs or sides having been glued under the base to lift it up, signalling that it has had a "facade" of sorts.
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Furthermore the the tag has been cut, to hide the Jensen name, and it has a hole in the base, to run the cord beneath it, surrounded by a brassring.
Something which would signal, that these changes wasnīt just made in a moment of inspiration by some youngster.
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I bought the engine from Greece, and even with good solid instructions for shipping forwarded, the seller decided that even the simplest requests wasnīt necessary to abide, so the box arrived like this:
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Not that encouraging, and true enough, when opened it had seen a proper beating:
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After straightening the steamvalve and lamppost, the severely dented boiler was replaced with a spare...and then on its "should have been" initial live steam test, it swiftly revealed that the heater was fried as well, just to ad some icing on the cake.

Thanks to assistance from Bruce "SPS", i managed to get hold of a new 220V heater from Jensen. Thanks for stepping up for me again my friend, MUCH appreciated!!!
(Their last 220V 2―" bellyheater heater btw, which they weīre kind enough to let go for $99.50. Over 25 bucks more than their parts list shows to this day, and more than twice the price of a 115V version...really must be hard counting a different number of windings, or change to another gauge of nichrome wire )

Anyway, life has had other chores for me, so i just now...more than 4 months after the heater arrived, finally managed to get the engine tossed back together.
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I naturally decided to give it a test under steam after assembly, and it once again proved its skills for being a problemchild.
Even after a serious amount of time spent, i can conclude that thereīs something amiss with the valverod or bore, as it is completely impossible to get it to run evenly in both directions.
Something which will have to be investigated by the next custodian i assume, as i think the last straw was encountered when testrunning, as seen in the movie below.

...I used to work very hard to even out the discrepancies only to make them run equally lousy in both directions , now I tune it to its best performance and let it go at that...

Thanks Bruce

What i went with as well, now at least one direction is satisfactory.

I did get a partial refund from the seller, after quite a bit of communication back and forth.
It was just enough to cover the cost of the new heater, so overall i am happy with the purchase.