Hello and welcome to two-weeks’ of news from the team at Quorn. The Palshoc Body has been united with its chassis; Edward is now up and running; we’ve visited the Foxfield Railway, and we continue to progress the tanks; although it’s still been a bit damp for paint. We’ve also been attending to the BEVs.
The repairs to Edward continued with a new water pump, new thermostat, new fuel lift pump; the injection pump was re-sealed and the back half of the exhaust was re-made with a flexi-pipe and a new silencer/tailpipe. The exhaust manifold gasket was also replaced. After he was re-assembled, fluids were filled up and his casing bolted back on. Edward now running much sweeter ready to reliably supply the air we need for paint spraying.
On Sunday 7 September, Nick and Charlie took a trip across to the Foxfield Railway to recover some kindly donated parts from a redundant Esso tank chassis. A brake change-over lever & associated pipework/rods, a tank drain valve, end pipes and brackets are all parts that are needed for the tanks that we are restoring.
At Rothley on Monday 8 September we assisted the C&W team with the recovered Palshoc & chassis work. After some careful sanding of the van body we have revealed its identity, B855568.
The chassis was lifted and its wheelsets replaced with a set acquired from Ruddington. The bearings and journals were examined, axleboxes cleaned, pads fitted and oiled-up.
The Palshoc body was lifted into place on the chassis, positioned and levelled, then welded at each corner to allow the wagon to be shunted safely.
Tank 3854 – the headstock frame box areas were cleaned out and sanding of the tank barrel has been progressed.
Tank 3606 – A final sand of the tank barrel was completed; the recovered brake change over levers and rods were cleaned up and fitted.
Tank 3621 – The change-over levers were freed off, oiled up and the lever bracket castings cleaned up.
A final bit of sanding was carried out of the tank barrel.
Due to the inclement weather the painting of the tanks has been postponed again, however we have acquired some new spraying equipment and this was prepared ready for when the weather provides as suitable opportunity.
Two of the BEVs have recently been giving a few problems, George suddenly stopped powering and Kiki‘s resistor bank overheats very quickly. We made a start investigating the problems, firstly to get acquainted with how they are electrically connected we drew -up a schematic for both BEVs. Quite quickly we saw that they were not the same, after checking ZsaZsa we concluded that Kiki was not wired correctly, also the top panel of her resistor bank was somewhat corroded which may have contributed to the overheating.
Checking of the cable continuity on George revealed that the power was not getting from the controller to the motor; further investigation removing the cable protection found a fractured power cable. This will be repaired and a new protective sheath fitted to the motor cable loom.
The resistor bank from Kiki was removed and replaced with a spare we had. This will be wired up correctly in due course.
With the mixed goods rake stabled in the yard, Dan took the opportunity to finally apply the dates and depot codes to the data panel on the Coal Hopper B425356. He first created a template which provided the outline once chalked to the wagon as the guide for signwriting.
That concludes what has been a couple of weeks of very varied work; join us again soon when we hope to hope to get the opportunity to apply some paint to the tanks.
