04/12/22 – Blazing a Trail(er)

Matt has once again pushing on with Lilibet on Monday. He fitted the new seats, which still await upholstery.

He was on site awaiting an arrival, but had time with assistance from wife Michelle to complete the interior Blood, Custard and Grey, as well as adding a leather patch to the nose access panel as the paint work gets touched by the left foot when operating the clutch. Any guesses regards the crimson square?

What of this arrival? A little job from our friends at the Nene Valley Railway Wagon Group. They have recently purchased an ex Cadburys diesel 6T Scarab including trailer. While they focus on the tractor unit, Matt has taken on the trailer as a side task. The agreement being the trailer can leave once their Scarab visits for a Railways at Work Gala. We will cover this restoration as one of our own, with Matt being heard to say he wants it structurally complete by Christmas, he does like to challenge himself.

Although one task at a time, Lilibet’s internal repaint continuing Wednesday and completed Thursday. The original seat being refitted as the new ones go away for reupholstering.

Matt also restored and repaired a few of the cab fittings.

On to the NVR trailer, Matt removed the floor and the side sheets to inspect and prepare the way forward for the frame.

On to Saturday with Dave, Matt and Nick on site. Matt carried on with Lillibet, signwriting the cab. Now you’ll see the reason for the Crimson square!

Dave and Nick fitted some different vacuum felxible hoses from the train pipe to the cylinder release valve and tested the brakes on 3711 using our trusty vacuum rig.

Unfortunately the brakes had some resistance to applying, so Dave had to deploy a jack to give it some encouragement. One pipe joint was found to be leaking, so this was also attended to at this point.

Dave continued the signwriting on the dock side of the tool van, dodging the showers!

I was there on Sunday alongside Nick, Matt, Mark and Dan. Nick, Mark, Dan and I continued looking at the breaks on the tank. We tried the rig again after issues with the test hoses, and applied and released the brakes a few times. It was noted that the piston had risen above the reserve stroke, which points to the brakes requiring adjustment. We did this and much as could be done and tried again.

Matt continued on his push on the NVR’s trailer, making new wood framework for the rear and the side frames.

Back to our brake test, the cylinder seemed to be applying and releasing better, but was found to fail the slow application test. Unfortunately this means we’ll need to take the cylinder off again at somepoint to investigate.

Now relased from the brake test, Nick continued the scale removal from the inside frames of the tank, finding a nice little hidey-hole. I stripped down and cleaned our vacuum test cocks, which have become stiff to operate of late.

After all this, we found time to replace the sign Matt adopted as a secret project.