A friend has asked me to reiterate to anyone joining this thread more recently, that the MOK 8F kit that I am building was bought in 2010 and has been upgraded by MOK at least twice since then. Just in case anyone reading the thread is put off buying an MOK kit by reading my journey.

Additionally, when I started building it back in 2012, I didn’t have much experience (or confidence) in loco building. Hence mistakes were made by me and no fault of the kit through inexperience\lack of confidence. Which I now need to revisit having gained experience and confidence to rectify those mistakes in the meantime.

The latest of them being the realisation that the two rear compensation beams don’t move fully in one direction which leaves the second from the rear axle sitting lower than the others without any upward movement that should be allowed by the compensation beam.

Examination of the chassis has revealed that the issue is caused by my siting of the spring hangers for the second axle so I need to take them off and make adjustments to allow the full range of movement

It also doesn’t help that I had gone so far in building the kit as an LNER 06 but when I bought the whistle of Swindon Built 8F 8425 and decided to base my model on that example instead it required a few changes. Which are again, nothing to do with the quality of the kit as supplied.