Good evening all, and welcome to another update. With the Catfish finished, and the weather taken a turn for the worst we’ve looked at inside work, though the GUV did get a bit more attention.
I concentrated on re-assembling the genset in the Test Car, bleeding the fuel system, replacing the coolant and of course trying to start it. Sadly, still no joy with getting it running so still more work to do on this.
In a gap in the weather on Sunday, the Baldwins managed to get some more of the west side of the GUV stripped back and prepared.
Thanks for reading! Fingers crossed for better weather next week, join us there and see what we get up to.
Hi everyone, welcome to this weeks update from the team at Quorn. The weather has hampered our plans to get some paint on the Catfish; however we’ve kept ourselves busy. Some stock positioning shunting too place whilst we continued with progress on the LMS brake van, some more items on the to-do-list and Test Car 2s generator.
During the week Tom, Dan and Nick continued with painting on the LMS Brake Van M730562 at Rothley, handrails, lamp brackets, swan necks and underframe were progressed. A new step board was also made and fitted.
The new paint arrived ready for the two Catfish wagons, however the inclement Saturday morning weather meant that wagons were too wet for us to apply any paint, so Oliver made sure it was stored away safe.
The old crank pulley oil seal was removed from the timing cover from Test Car 2s generator; the cover was then de-greased and pressure washed.
A new seal was then fitted using a suitably sized drift and our makeshift press with a final knock-into position with a hammer.
Hector’s cab parts were loaded onto one of the box vans for safe keeping and we sorted out some spare bolts in readiness for box van repairs before the Class 37, 37714 arrived to manage various shunt moves at Quorn for stock positioning.
Ross and myself continued with cleaning up the timing cover mating surfaces on Test Car 2s generator, and repairs to some of the generator wiring.
Richard resurrected some old skills in repairing and servicing two of Nick’s 1970s record players.
Ernie and Nick installed a lighting power supply cable across to the Fish Van on the dock; this will help us as the nights draw-in.
Mark, Tom, Oliver Dan and Nick managed to a bit of house keeping in the short spell between the Sunday morning rain and the lunchtime rain. The rotten sleepers were moved from the dock to the wood pile for the bonfire.
A general tidy up of the area on the dock and some gardening will help improve the access for vehicles to the dock.
Hello everyone, and thanks for joining us for another update from Quorn. The autumn weather is definitely settling in, so we’ve been ticking jobs off the back burner list. During the week, Dan finished the signwriting on the LMS brakevan, which now leaves some underframe painting to finish.
With rain predicted on Saturday, I started looking at re-assembling the genset in the Test Car. Naturally, I started by taking it apart more… To re-attach the fuel pump, I wanted to check the timing on the geartrain, so ended up draining the coolant from the system and removed the radiator and water pump to gain access to the timing case. As I was removing components, Charlie took them outside and cleaned them with the pressure washer.
Nick and Ernie took a look at the drawer in the kitchen on the coach, which has been broken for a few months. The drawer was re-assembled with additional L brackets to re-attach the front of the drawer. Back in the generator room, I found broken wires on the magnetic pickup and the dynamo, which may have contributed to the issues with the generator.
On Sunday,we started by moving the barrels from E281882 back into B765272 to put them back into covered storage after Railways At Work.
We then moved onto some light landscaping, to clear an access ramp to get Danny up onto the dock to help in clearing that up.
I went back into the Test Car and finished piping up the fuel system, which leaves just the control actuators and the cooling system left to re-assemble. I also repaired the intermediate cover which had some loose rivets.
The light landscaping turned into heavy landscaping to fill in some of the ramp way to make it less steep for Danny, who eventually made it onto the dock.
Dan and I went to test the air brakes on the TEA tank, however part way through the test, it was found that one bow girder was not moving when the brakes were applied. We stopped the test and sent Dan under to lubricate and tap the linkages to free them. This didn’t remedy the seizing this weekend, so we’ll look at it again another time.
Thanks for reading! we should be back on the Catfish next weekend, weather permitting, to apply the black paint. Joins us then!
Hello everyone and thanks for joining us in this bank holiday update. Unusually for a Bank Holiday the weather has been glorious so we’ve applied some paint to the Palvan. During the week, Tom and Oliver sanded and primed the ends of the van.
Dave and Barry took a look at the Test Car’s generator. Barry and Dave undertook a compression check on each cylinder, then re-fitted the injectors and tried to start the generator. Sadly no joy due to a failed start battery so this was removed and charged to try another day. From what we could do, the generator doesn’t seem any more likely to start, so now suspect the fuel injection pump has failed.
While Ernie undercoated the wood work on each end of the Palvan, Nick and I finished off work on A1610B. The last corner was looking rather frilly so had a piece of steel cut and sandwiched over the top. This was drilled and the corner bolted back together. Having lost the battle with the generator, Dave took to scraping the container, Charlie also having a go at this.
On Sunday, Tom, Oliver, Dan and I applied some gloss to both set of doors on the Palvan as a first coat. Oliver and Tom also applied gloss over the undercoat applied by Ernie on each end. Some of the lads carried on with the needle gun on the Palvan chassis which quickly ran out, so they moved onto one of the Catfish. Nick concentrated on patching the container with Mark.
Nick and I concentrated on the south end metal work, myself with the needle gun, being very careful not to catch the wood work while Nick followed me with a scraper to catch the edges. We each got a bit of primer and primed our handiwork, which completed the work this week.
Next week, we’ll tackle the north end of the van and get the into primer, and maybe the other end into undercoat. Join us then to see how we get on!
