Of leaks, trollies and paint

10th March 2019

Hello, is it Sunday again already? The days seem to just fly by. I'd say it was old age but that's something I'm trying to give up. I'm working on this theory that if I keep telling myself that I am fitter than I've ever been my body will respond accordingly. Y'know, mind over matter. Now stop shaking your head and read on...

I knew from a phone call with Pete C that the fuel leak on RS8 was becoming a problem. The small container we'd left under it had been superceded by a much larger collector which had coped over the weekend, but when we saw how full it was on Monday, Andy H observed that it was a good job it wasn't a bank holiday weekend!

Pete C meantime having unlocked the room, disappeared off to find a suitable length of air hose and a connector to enable the 110Volt compressor, which had indeed materialised, to feed into the air system. That left Andy and me almost at a loose end, as Pete had not unlocked the tool cupboard. Desperate measures were nearly resorted to in order to gain access.

When Pete returned, the air system was charged up and we started to find all(?) the air leaks. Meanwhile I had spotted a 'cube' - one of those 1000 litre plastic drums in a steel frame - not far away from RS8. It was labelled 'dirty diesel' (that's a description of its contents, not an insult aimed at RS8) and I showed it to Pete, who insisted it belonged to a contractor as Tarmac didn't use 'cubes'. Nevertheless, it appeared to contain clean gas oil without visible debris so we moved it across to RS8, allowed it to stand a while, marked the level and then drained all of the offending tank's contents into it through the engine hoses. Meanwhile Pete found that in fact, the drain plug in the tank was missing - all that had been preventing the tank emptying more rapidly was something sitting over the 'ole! We fitted a 1/4 BSP tap and plug, and then Pete laboriously refilled the tank using a 5 litre jug, rather than risk draining it straight in from the cube and transferring any dirt etc that might in fact be in the bottom. Once down to the mark, the cube was returned to its original resting place.

Meanwhile we kept running the air up on the compressor to identify leaks. The joint we had thought we had cured last week turned out to still be a problem - I had brought an o-ring kit and one was teased into position and may have done the trick. A pin hole in the bottom of the emergency pressure gauge was spotted. The driver's brake valve was extracted to see if the sealing washers on its base had failed (hence the o-ring kit) but eagle-eyed Andy reckoned that the porting on the valve wasn't a match to how we'd plumbed the manifold. In any event we'd plugged off the feed to the valve to try and trace other leaks. One was my clutch timing reservoir, and my manufacturing cork joints didn't improve things. I said last week that I wondered whether we'd put the emergency brake regulator in back to front: well we hadn't. I rather wish we had, because opening the regulator should have created pressure in the brake cylinder, but that turned out to be yet another (big) leak! In all, we identified around a dozen leaks, but have yet to fix all of them, so no attempts to run the engine. On the plus side, the gearbox control pneumatics functioned and the gearbox happily reversed (leak on one cylinder head and another on the changeover valve in the cab) but the horn wouldn't sound and the clutch cylinder made only a half-hearted attempt to pull over, but with the timing reservoir leaking that wasn't much of a surprise. At the end of the day I came away somewhat demoralised - we're getting there but there's still much to sort.

During the week I ordered up a replacement throttle cable and news came through that the fabrications for the air cleaner element were ready, so I picked these up on Thursday, but merely unloaded them at the shed to await the weekend.

On Saturday morning Andrew asked me to be down early as there was another trolley due from the Rail Trolley Trust. In the event it was about quarter past ten when a big Transit towing a car trailer came down Station Road and swung in, by which time James had dragged the train back. Sat on the transporter was something of an old acquaintance, since this particular trolley, of indeterminate parentage, was once resident at Long Marston before YEC operated there. Anyway, we shunted the locos out the way, backed the trailer in and lifted it off with the forklift. The van departed and Andrew rode said trolley up the yard by hanging on to the rear drawhook of Ashdown as Charlie took the locos clear of the turnout.

That done, we parked things back up and shut the doors against the cold wind and periodic rain. I turned my attention to the Hatz. I had a fresh piece of 2mm steel the right width this time, and started making cover plates to replace the badly corroded ones. Bending the end pieces wasn't so simple (we are not geared up for that sort of fabrication,) but a gas torch and a former got us somewhere near. They are never going to be to Hatz quality but should at least keep the weather off! Later in the day I slapped some Rustoleum yellow on both the new plates and rubbed-down originals, again as much to afford weather protection as anything. A second coat went on on Sunday, making it look like this:-

Anyway, Andrew spent some of his time on Ashdown, and also on 1382, which after a welding job was ceremoniously lowered back on to the rails. He also rigged up the underside of Adolf's casings as a temporary paint booth, with the intention of spraying the trailer link arms and brackets in the morning. However, on Sunday it had snowed overnight, so a slightly later start than anticipated saw a change of plan, and we loaded a few tools into the van and headed up to Rowsley, there to recover some parts from equipment we still have up there. That achieved we returned to the shed and Andrew made a start on painting, but brushing rather than spraying after all.

I took the parts for RS8's air cleaner, and tried the element into place: at first it wouldn't go (it's a close fit and some tack-welds on the inside were foul) bit a quick clean up with a flap wheel remedied that. Here's a composite showing the 'box' part of the cleaner with and without the element.

But the box is intended to be fixed to the outer sheet, which keeps the weather off and clamps the element in place, so my main task was to drill out the box, back mark to the sheet and drill and tap the latter.

With that accomplished it is ready to go up to Tunstead tomorrow. Andrew meantime had moved on to some tidying, as well as removing the beam from the mattersons so that 1382 can be moved a foot or two forward and the vac pipe flanges secured. He also went through the container, dug out a replacement hooter for RS8 (and tested it!) and a selection of gauges. I removed the old pump from the adaptor plate on the Hatz, and refitted the plate and its spacer ready for a new pump. All in all a fairly satisfying weekend with some progress on various fronts.

Before I forget, no need to e-mail me to say that Andrew's website is down right now. It is being transferred from one internet provider to another and will be restored in a day or two. The same thing will happen to this site in due course, probably late one week when traffic is at its lowest. My commercial site has already moved.

So tomorrow it's back up to Tunstead and hopefully sort out a lot of the air issues: I'm hoping that there'll be a fitter and we'll get that rotary manifold back into use, but we shall see. There's plenty of things to get on with back at the shed, though as grandson will be across it might mean that Andrew is not so readily available. Who knows? Come back and find out. See ya then.