Of plans and reality

9th August 2020

Will have to be a quick one tonight as I have an early start in the morning.

I thought, as at this time last week, I had it all planned. Monday to return grandson to his mother's, Tuesday collect profiles and repaired ram, Wednesday Nottingham followed by Northampton and Corby and Thursday up into the North West, leaving Friday clear to recover and maybe get a bit of 'work' done. Alas the best laid schemes, etc. Late Monday afternoon the hydraulic repairers advised that they could not get the piston off the piston rod (it has to as the other end is formed into an eye) as it had been loctited on and even though it began to unscrew it had gone solid. They brought it up to red hot to no avail, so there was nothing for it but to machine the piston off and manufacture a new one, but it would take a little longer. And the profilers had not advised whether anything was ready - and as the office was still at the old place but the production staff were at the new place and training on new machines, I couldn't get much joy there. So Tuesday came and went and I caught up on some admin. Wednesday didn't look like being much better, but by late morning I had news from the profilers that my bits would be ready on or about 3pm, and the hydraulic repairers said that if I went there after, the ram should be ready. So I left it as late as possible and came back with the bits.

Wednesday evening Andrew and I went down to the shed, and he put together some temporary replacement pins made from from En16T bar with plasma cut tabs. In due course laser cut tabs and more sophisticated machined pins with greaseways incorporated will be assembled. So on Thursday I went off to the hauliers yard and handed over ram and pins. He already had someone at work assembling the steering drag bars and ball joints and I was able to look over the new (to him anyway) 650bhp Mercedes tractor unit that he'll be using on our heavier loco jobs.

Now, I had muttered about heading north west and that job was still outstanding, even though it couldn't have been done earlier. For Andrew, with a mind to improving the timbers etc for the trailer, had purchased a set of hardwood timber ranp pieces from a firm in Skelmersdale. All I had to do was collect. Just one snag, it comprised 5 tapered pieces, each 300 or so wide, 1500 long, so was as wide as its length. 1500 fits in the van easily, it just doesn't go through the doorways. Oh and 5, bolted together, worked out at around 200kg, so not something I could easily throw in. So I took the 70 odd miles to Skelmersdale with some trepidation on Friday. Andrew had enquired and no, they wouldn't unbolt them (they said they'd tried once and had a devil of a job) so it was all or not at all. In the end though, a co-operative fork lift driver took most of the weight on the forks, while I steadied it at about 30 degrees off vertical, and in it went. Ironically I was on site for barely 15 minutes.

On Saturday we were expecting Alistair L and his son at 11 o'clock - they are taking on the task of repainting Charlie - but at ten past ten, as I was getting ready to head down and open up, they phoned to say they were there so I had to rush. I fired Charlie up and brought it as close to the shed as currently possible, set them up with a power supply and left them to it. They are planning to deal with the loco in stages, and stage one was the left hand sideskirts, which were rubbed down and given a first coat.

Meanwhile Andrew and I took stock of the timber ramp and how to dis-assemble it. It turned out to be held together by 3 M22 studs, and after a few false starts (mainly because I had mis-read the studs as being M24 as they were hammered over a bit at the ends and recessed, making vernier readings difficult, besides M22 is supposed to be non-preferred) an air wrench at one end and me with a socket and T-bar at the other, not only did the nuts come off but the bars wound themselves out as the timber had swelled and formed a thread around them. Relieved that my van was now empty, we returned to Ashdown, with Andrew fitting some last few bits around the vacuum exhauster and carrying out static air tests to ascertain whether all our new pipework was air tight or not.

Today we picked up where we'd left off. Knowing that the air system was OK it was time to take Ashdown outside and fire it up. Ludwig Mond did the honours and brought the box van out too. Having put the battery interlink cable on and thus had 24V at our disposal, on went the battery switch and master switch, the keyswitch and press the start button - and - nothing. Not even the oil pressure warning light came on. Turn everything off, get out test metter and go through it methodically.

One of the traditional ceramic fuse holders had obviously taken umbridge at being disturbed and the fuse wire within had fractured. Scour workshops for old traditional fuse wire. I know somewhere I have one of those small red cards you used to get at Woollies with 3 sizes of fusewire wrapped round. Yes, those good old pre H&S days when you were entitled to take a fuse holder and wrap 2 or 3 strands of 15A across the points when one on its own kept melting... Anyway, could I find it? No, but I did find enough on another fuse holder I'd salvaged from Claire to make a new link and shortly after Ashdown fired and ran on its own compressor.

While Andrew set up the unloader valve and monitored oil pressures and such, I flooded the bearings and topped up the wick feed lubricators for the axleboxes. All was going well, and with that sorted and the exhauster drive belts fitted, we tried to tension the exhauster base but it was just off the end of the adjuster screw and no way could we pull it by hand, nor lever against anything. In the end, with a sling around the exhauster base, and a pull lift attached to a nearby 2HAP, the exhauster was pulled back far enough to get the screw to enagage and adjust properly.

Fire up and start looking for vacuum leaks, etc., then setting up the control valves for the vac brake control and testing their function. Suddenly a big air leak started. Took a while to find it and when we did, our hearts sank as it was the exhaust port from the vac/air valve leaking enough that the compressor couldn't keep up. This is the original proportional valve on the loco, albeit that we've relocated it, but it looks as though something's got in and jammed it open. By now it was late afternoon and with a small snag list - refit battery box lid, change front vac dummy rubber seal, maybe adjust snifter valve if that doesn't bring the vac up reliably to 21" - we had to admit defeat, that opening up and checking that valve through (and hopefully not finding anything more than some debris) was too much for that day, or in other words that it wouldn't be ready to go this week as planned. Ah well, it's nearly there, and we finished off in a pleasant, cooler early evening shunting around to get the box van out of the shed before putting things back much as before.

Anyway, early start tomorrow as the trailer is in action and I must follow. Will this week run to plan? Probably not. Come back next Sunday and find out. See ya then.