January 22nd-24th 2011 - Bury, Baron St Works

Saturday 22nd January
Attendance: 8

The day began with Chris B heading up to Castlecroft to fill 6 25-litre containers of 30's grade oil. Jim & Graham continued with the manufacture of the new start panel, Jason completed the pipe work to the oil pressure gauge, including re soldering one end which had broken out of the fitting. He then lagged the exhaust stack from the turbo to the bellow, which was oustanding from last time. Dave Garnett was tasked with completing the rivnuting of the last two window frames on the cab then fitting the frames, helped by Jonny Stevenson. Kris Mason's job was removing the side frame that had previously been fitted the wrong way, these things happen!

Jason lagging the turbo exhaust	Final window frame installed	Chris B filling the power unit with oil

Having returned with the oil, Chris B proceeded to fill the power unit and move a new set of batteries, to run the oil priming pump, down the works. The batteries were connected up on the floor next to the loco and Alan ran some wires to the oil priming pump. With all eyes on pipework and connections we fired the pump into life, running it for around a minute achieved 40psi on the gauge, with no signs of any leaks or distress. We gave the pump a little breather, then fired it up again, this time achieving 50psi without any leaks or signs of trouble, so with everyone happy, the power was disconnected.

Hydrostatic tank filled with oil	Batteries connected up on the floor

Jason then moved onto filling up the Hydrostatic system and Chris filled the turbo oil reservoirs. Alan continued in the cab and cubicle terminating wires and also managed to source a suitable cable trunk for the B end cable runs. After much swearing, Jim and Graham had completed the start panel with just the paxalin board left to be cut, so they moved onto the float switch. A new float switch had been purchased for the cooler group but the job had stalled whilst a suitable 10mm thick plate was sourced to make a fitting flange with.

Having completed the window frames, Jonny Stevenson moved onto fitting the heat exchanger cap with a drain tap, replacing the seized brass bung removed last time, then refitting to the heat exchanger on the loco along with two new drain taps to the power unit coolant system drains.

Jim & Graham sourced a suitable slab of metal for the float switch then cut out a square the correct size, then began to mark and drill holes in preparation for fitting. With time getting on, Jason, Chris & Alan decided to lift the batteries into the boxes on each side the B end of loco - they fitted perfectly and brought the day nicely to a close.

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Sunday 23rd January
Attendance: 5

Graham continued with the manufacture of a flange for the float switch, four mounting holes were drilled and the larger ½" hole for the centre was made with the big drill in the steam works. Chris tapped the centre hole using a ½" taper NPT tap, very tough going but we got there in the end and the new float switch was inserted and tightened up to the correct position. Graham made a new gasket and fitted the finished assembly to the loco.

It has been noticed that the manual fuel lift pump wasn't working so Chris set about investigating, took the whole thing apart and rebuilt it, as nothing seemed to be wrong inside. Once refitted, it worked!? but was leaking from the bottom, so another strip down followed to apply sealant as required. Upon rebuilding one of the carbon vanes shattered, so it was decided to leave until the next day to investigate if a repair would be possible.

Batteries sat snug in B end box	Cooler group float and plate assmebly	Float and plate assmebly fitted

Jason took off the exhaust bellow, as we needed to check it was rebuilt the correct way round for the direct flow of the exhaust, sure enough it wasn't, so he rebuilt it the correct way. Next up was the cooler group fan cowl and roof section which required attention to take new fixings. The cowl was removed and drilled out in preparation then D9531 was dragged out of the works and with help from Graham Thornton driving the works Manitou, the cooler group roof section was removed allowing Jason to grind off the 4 old captive nuts for the fan cowl, which had snapped bolts in them. The holes were drilled out to match those made in the cowl and suitable nuts and bolts used to reunite the two once again. The roof section was returned and D9531 shunted back into the works where Jason bolted it back on to the frames permenantly.

Chris & Graham, filled the coolant system with water to check that we had survived the recent heavy cold snap. The drains were left open at first to flush the system through, then Chris closed them allowing the system to fill. Once full the system was left to settle and would be checked again later.

Alan was joined by Matt Lindley (usually found within Western Prince) and the two were busying themselves understanding the electrics in the loco, assembling conduits and fittings for various cab items.

Graham and Graham removing the nose roof	D9531 in Baron Street works

Graham decided to look at some of the engine room doors to try and get them to close properly without the aid of a boot! Some will need a good dose of TLC as they are slightly bent! This will require a good deal of time and patience so will be looked at again next time.

Chris revisited the troublesome hand fuel lift pump and did manage get it working again to a fashion, but it seized up during the testing process! With Jason's help, a barrel pump was found that may have suitable inner workings to fix the lift pump on the loco, but with time against us and the temperature dropping, we called it a day.

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Monday 24th January
Attendance: 3

Chris dismantled the barrel pump to find a metal vane inside possibly suitable for a repair to the one on the loco, so this was removed, modified and the loco pump dismantled again to exchange the part. Meanwhile, Jason cleaned up some cap screws for the cooler group side grill, and tapped out the holes on the framework. With some assistance, A end No 1 side Cooler group side grill was later fitted to the loco. Jason also went to the C & W to borrow a wood chisel to remove some little strips of wood in the battery boxes that prevented batteries on each side to seat flat (possibly the only time a flat battery is desired!).

Steve Connor joined us and was tasked with custom fitting each windscreen wiper adapter plate and wiper to the cab, this required a lot of elongating of holes, holes in the wood surround opening out and drilling and tapping of some mounting blocks. Steve managed to custom fit all the wiper plates, but only two of the motors, as we hadn't enough countersunk metric screws to mount them. Chris had fitted the new vain to the pump, but to no joy, and decided not to waste anymore time on it, a replacement pump or carbon vane will have to be purchased.

Next, the oil level in the transmission was inspected to check it had not risen, all was well so Chris drained down the coolant system and moved onto sorting a fuel leak that had been noticed from the fine filter outlet pipe, probably responsible for emptying the header tank. The oil connections were uncoupled but the pipe wouldn't come off completely without taking the fuel system apart further. Rather than this, Chris cleaned the threads and olive up as best he could in situ then, using plenty of sealant, connected the pipe back up and tightened it as much as it would allow. The sealant was left a few minutes to go off, then the fuel supply turned back on. The connection seemed to hold and was leak free.

With glass fitting imminent, we decided that it would be best to remove the two route indicator boxes that were fitted, Jason set about doing this whilst Chris refitted the transmission over temp switch to the B end of the loco and the capillary to the transmission outlet pipework, this took some time as to get to the pipe work you have to get under the cab on top of the final drive!