Disappointing castings , but the rest is a lovely loco.
loose valve gear rod as described and expected. Upon inspection this is due to ZAMAC ROT to the back of the crosshead casting , hopefully superglue will have solved it. Unfortunately the same metal rot applied to the front pony truck casting that fell apart upon removal to access the crosshead. It literally fell apart breaking in two and was about to crumble into bits. I was able to rescue it by copious applications of various superglues but the side details have been lost. I am continuing to rebuild it. Obviously ZAMAC ROT will have extended to 1000's of castings made out of this contaminated batch (lack of quality control by the producer in China probably).
Disappointing but still a lovely loco.