23/06/24 – Palvan Completed

Welcome to a sunny June weekend update from the team at Quorn. This weekend we’ve been doing some heavy metalwork on the Catfish and finishing the last few jobs on Palvan B781908.

Saturday started with Tom and Dan doing some oiling of the brake rigging on the Palvan.

Oliver helped Nick replace the vacuum brake hoses on both ends of the Palvan.

I removed and tested the fuel lift pump on the Test Car; all was good so this was re-fitted.

Ernie and Ross concentrated on cutting, welding and grinding of some more of the gouges imparted by digger buckets on the Catfish DB983560.

Thanks to Mark for bringing along some provisions for a BBQ lunch; prepared by head chef Oliver who was helped by sous-chef Charlie, and of course Tom (being a Grade 6 food techie) had to supervise.

After lunch there was some more cutting, welding and grinding.

The Test Car’s cannister oil filter was also removed and cleaned out.

Then there was some more welding and grinding.

Sunday and more sunshine; Ross fitted a few missing split pins that we noted during the previous wagon inspection we did on the Palvan.

I did some measuring up in readiness for preparing the templates for the forthcoming signwriting on the Catfish wagons.

Nick, Ross and myself then got the vacuum test rig started in order to look into the train pipe leakage problem on the Palvan.

The vacuum hose end seal on the south end was noted to be leaking so that was replaced.

A small leak was found on the cylinder piston rod gland so that was removed and inspected; the seal was slightly damaged so this was replaced. It was also noted that the cylinder release was not a smooth or as quick as it should be. On closer inspection the piston rod itself was seen to be slightly bent, so a ‘straight’ replacement from stock was cleaned up and fitted.

With the leakage problem and slow release still persisting we decided to drop out the inner cylinder and piston to check the ball valve and rolling ring.

The rolling ring was inspected and noted in very good condition, therefore it was re-fitted to the piston. Some muck was cleaned out of the ball valve and a little dust in the inner cylinder hoovered out before refitting back into the cylinder dome. The die-nut was run down a couple of the dome cover stud threads and one stud re-fitted further into the dome. The release valve was also swapped for another overhauled one.

A replacement hose for connecting the test rig to the wagon was fitted as we noted some collapsing of the old hose. The branch pipe clip was also replaced with a slightly smaller one to try and get a better seal here.

Finally we managed to achieve a respectable vacuum train pipe leakage rate for the Palvan.

This completes our restoration work on B781908 which started back in November last year; here’s the before and after. The wagon will now be handed over to the Carriage & Wagon Department for final inspection and sign-off; however we will also carry out a running assessment / inspection during its in-train first operation.

Thanks for reading, all the best, Dave