Of Engine Mismanagement

26th January 2025

Oh deary me, I'm going to have to admit that there are no pictures for a second week running. Oh the shame, oh the indignity...

Monday. I decided to run up'north to collect some parts I wanted for W H Davis's loco. On the way back I stopped in at Sheffield and picked up some cable with the intention of re-wiring the alternator feed on the little minilok. Aside from that, with a persistent cough that's been with me for a week or more there wasn't much achieved.

Tuesday I was back at the shed with Matt H: I had a list of jobs for him to do for me on the Davis loco (with the bits I'd bought yesterday) while I concentrated on the little minilok. One of the things I hadn't mentioned last week was tracing through the wires versus the sketches of the wiring hence I had managed to identify which light in the desk was the Engine Management unit (ECU) Fault light. As all the legends on the desk have faded away I had struggled to work out which was which - now I opened up the bulb holder, checked the filament of the bulb by eye and as it was one of these capless things waggled the wires a bit before re-inserting it into its holder. It had not previously lit up which meant I was not entirely certain whether the ECU was actually working.

On Tuesday therefore I fitted the batteries once again, turned on the power and there was a bright red fault light declaring its presence on the dashboard. I ran the engine for a while and put a test meter on to the alternator output terminal - it returned a whole 1 volt so that will have to come off and be remedied. Back with the ECU, did the fault light indicate that the ECU had detected something that was incorrect or was it just some default output it gave whenever there was something it couldn't cope with - like the air in Derbyshire or some such. Without the Deutz software and the dongles, cables etc I had no means of knowing. Our friendly Deutz agent was less perturbed (well he's got the dongles) but suggested that the configuration he'd downloaded from the Deutz website for this engine was incorrect and the Fault indication was it declaring it couldn't make sense of what was connected to it. Off came the ECU again.

Thursday: It was a disturbing morning as three times my computer suddenly re-booted itself. As it was daytime I had no lights on so hadn't seen any flickering and instead checked all my power connectors, etc were in securely. Storm Eowyn was about and then the news came through that Rowsley and its surroundings had a power cut - though it wasn't affecting us down at Darley Dale. In the afternoon, for the sake of fresh air if nothing else, I went up to Rowsley to fit the direction sensing bracket on to Bagnall the Barclay. As I drove in Mark S was driving out and we stopped side-by-side for a natter. Yes, the power was 'out' although a portion of Rowsley had been restored. Without juice the cafe had had to close and as the loco shed was affected, the evening working party would be cancelled. Mark was heading home as his office over the loco shed had neither light, heat nor internet. I went on to the Barclay and partly got the bits fitted, only to find I'd misplaced one of the nuts from the sensors so couldn't fit them both.

Sam and another of the dmu working group had arrived and unperturbed by lack of electric light (it was outside) had started replacing the brake blocks on one bogie. As I packed up, Sam called me over to assist as his colleague couldn't quite get the block in while Sam had held the crossbeam back. However with my reassuring presence it went straight in on another attempt and I informed them that supervision was my super-power.

A white van like mine had rolled up and a man in overalls and a clipboard came over to me as clearly my aura had spread beyond a mere bogie. He was from Western Power Distribution and wanted to know where the transformer was. I doubted whether his van would suddenly re-configure itself so left him to try and find a humble grey one while I phoned Mark, who drove back. It seems the railway's power comes through this transformer, which is serviced by a cable that goes high over the river then underground up a hillside on the western side of the valley. Somewhere in that underground section there is a break, and the railway, and possibly a few other households over there, must wait until they can dig it up and fix it, which might be a couple of weeks. For now, a generator would be arriving (I gather it did first thing Friday) to run the railway while they do all this.

Friday and Andrew had decreed he would be down for a while and we would do some 'tidying'. In this case I started clearing an area just in front of 'my' electrical cupboard (with the power tool cupboard adjacent). The doors of my electrical cupboard could not be closed because of the material stacked in the threshold, and at the same time prevented the doors of the power tool cupboard being properly opened. Achieving the latter resulted in Andrew doing an audit of all that was in there, discovering a few machines which we didn't know we had in the process. I found myself delegated to test whether some of them worked, even though we have had a tendency to go almost exclusively battery of late rather than set up 110V cables for a brief bit of drilling/grinding whatever. The boxes of sorted stripped or unstripped old cables, brass, aluminium, etc were progressively filled and I think a weighing in trip might be on the cards.

Saturday and in addition to Matt H I had visitors booked. Andrew had suggested that while the weather was decent we should get on with burning up bits of the EE, especially the fuel tank which was lifted off and taking up space. To get the gas to the tank not only meant taking the forklift outside but also firing up Louise to drag the train back. The EE's fuel tank was drained weeks ago and the tank gauge read zero. We had however had no luck draining through the tap expressly intended for it, so assuming it was blocked with dirt, had pumped it out through the fillers. Matt started carefully cutting along the side from the (removed) fuel gauge, and was unsurprised at the smoke it generated as you can never get a tank 100% clean - even the dirt would be partially diesel.

A little while later though he had a fire going with flames a couple of feet high. Diesel doesn't burn readily at room temperature but will if it gets hot enough. We put the fire out and cooled things down, and now able to see properly inside the tank it became apparent that our 'de-fuelling' had been woefuly incomplete. Another 150 litres or so of diesel was duly pumped out before Matt could continue turning the tank into compact pieces. Andrew turned up to borrow the van, and shortly after my 3 vistors arrived for a tour. They made themselves popular by asking whether the Donations tin was in its usual place and contributing to it.

Andrew returned later with bits of sofa to put back in the container, reporting when he did so that as he drove the van aggressively up the hill to his house the ECU on the van had come up with a new message - 'Adblue Emission Fault' (no, not run out, that would be much simpler). This is on top of the 'Engine Fault, Repair Needed' message it puts up regularly (and usually gives up reminding me after a few days) and the tyre pressure warning (that I can't remember how to cancel) and as each of the three is preceded by three beeps it has become so welcoming a song to my ears as I back off the drive that I will be lost without them. Even the radio has got in on the act. A few weeks ago it suddenly flashed up 'System Overheat, Volume limited' that frightened the life out of me and had me checking engine coolant temp and concluding that the charge air was too hot and thus the engine power was restricted via the turbo. Repeated messages weeks later occurred every time I tried to increase the radio volume from a level that I couldn't quite hear clearly over the normal engine noise and revealed the true meaning...

That cough really got to me on Saturday night and nothing I could do would stop it. The last dregs of the cough medicine bottle eventually helped but it was after 3 am that I finally got to sleep and consequently the Sunday alarm got short shrift. I didn't leave the house until lunchtime and then went via Sainsbury's for a fresh bottle of buttercup syrup.

I am fitting both new protection switches to the Davis loco and analogue gauges, but had attempted to save them a few bob by retaining the engine temp capillary gauge as it was intact (which the converter one hadn't been). How they had uncoupled it from the engine I wasn't sure, as the temperature 'bulb' and the adaptor were locked together and even soaking overnight in diesel had done nothing to free them. It struck me that maybe before going to much more trouble it might be worth checking that it worked so boiled the kettle (excuse for another tea) and plunged the bulb into a mug-full of hot water which must have still been in the mid 90s after the cooling effect of the mug.

The capillary gauge was a Caterpillar product (I recognised their style of part number and anyway it resembles the one on the forklift) and has 3 sections - yellow (cold) green (normal) and red (overheat) - rather than an actual numbered scale. Cat maybe assume their operators can't read. My hot water mug experiment made the needle move - but only a little way up in the yellow - it didn't make it into the green nor anywhere near the red and as I am about to fit a temp switch which operates at 96 degrees I concluded that it had had it. (What was this loco doing with a Caterpillar capillary? How should I know? It has a Cummins engine, and a radiator that once graced a Thomas Hill Vanguard or maybe a late Sentinel. The poor thing has become a mongrel and I am trying to improve the breed overall.) So the rest of the rainswept afternoon was occupied with mounting a fresh electric gauge in the desk and running new wires back from a sensor. Fortunately I had put provision for it in the multi-way in the first place.

I still have to try and make some semblance of order from a collection of oily, grubby, snipped off wires that emerge from the switch panel in the middle, and sort out a feed to the heater motor switch where someone has installed a 30Amp blade fuse in a joint between 2 wires, one of which would burn out before the fuse did if it came to it; and a wire which I suspect is the main negative back to battery and already has burnt through judging from the exposed blackened strands, and the fact that the plastic trunking has been fused to it. Sometimes, like Pandora's box, you're better off not looking too closely.

And that brings us around to another Sunday night, through which I hope to sleep soundlessly and soundly through to Monday morn. After more Buttercup syrup (and that's not a euphemism). Until next week - See ya then.