Hello and welcome to a very wet weekend update from Quorn. The Test Cars’ generator continues to be problematic; however we have completed the outstanding mechanical item on one of the Catfish.
During the week I was asked by the Rothley C&W team if I’d help out with part of the signwriting on BG 81382 which was being finished off ready for release from Rothley and use on the Santa Special trains this weekend.
(Photos courtesy of & copyright Jamie Swanson)
Mark, Tom and Charlie got stick into some interior cleaning in Test Car 2.
Whilst Ernie did some repairs to some of Test Car 2’s 1980s vintage wooden chairs.
Under Catfish DB983393, the initial thought was to heat up the area surrounding the two sheared bolts and use an easy-out extractor to remove them, however the bolts would not budge. So Ross and myself moved on to plan-B and drilled out the two bolts and tapped the holes for M12, then secured the saddle back into place.
With a fully charged starter battery connected to Test Car 2’s generator we were hopeful to get it running again. After quite a few attempts it finally fired up, however it was not running very smoothly at all and didn’t sound quite right either. We tweaked the fuel pump adjustment and tried again, but it ran much the same.
Our conclusion after all the replacement parts and checks we have done is that the problems could lay deeper in the engine; so we have decided the next step is to check the state of things in and under the cylinder head. The first task being to remove the exhaust.
With the exhaust manifold removed it became clear that that this engine needs some further TLC. The exhaust ports being very badly coked up.
We continued to remove parts in readiness for releasing the cylinder head.
Thanks for reading. join us again next week, all the best, Dave
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