Restoration diary

Dave continued cleaning & painting the second turbo, and yesterday examined the two remaining turbos on the power unit & found they both rotate freely, which is good news. Ian & Pete torqued down two cylinder heads to 600fpt, then examined the camshafts in the power units still in the locos to see if they were in better condition than the section that has some water damage in the ex-008 unit, but found both sections examined were in similar condition due to having stood idle for so long, so an off-site repair is looking likely. Chris Bodell continued his dirty work cleaning the clean air compt at No1 end, and has almost finished the one side now. I continued wrestling with the field divert cables, but found one marked for the one position that appears about two feet too short, so this will need further investigation.

Ian, Pete, Chris T & Tom washed down both locos for their appearance at the upcoming PR diesel gala & by the end of the day, both locos looked pretty good. Chris B has taken on the unenviable task of cleaning debris from the No.1 end clean air room, and by close of play it was difficult to see where his overalls stopped and his head started! Dave Rolfe has dismantled and freed off the stuck turbo and is now cleaning and painting it. I fitted the last two missing sections of 185mm cable to the field divert resistors, and spent the rest of the day wrestling with the six 3mtr lengths that drop down to the reverser, as they need to be fitted in a certain order to avoid having them tangled, which requires fitting and removal multiple times until you get it right, not that easy due to the confined space of the thin-man's passage and they are quite stiff due to their size.

On arrival at Peak Rail today, we discovered copper thieves had cut the four cables under No.2 end bogie to one of the traction motors. Two Peak Rail coaches had also been vandalised. This was reported to PR management. After examining Repulse, we discovered no other obvious damage & the other five motors seem to have escaped untouched. Ian, Pete & Dave stripped the seized turbocharger & removed both sets of bearings & although the shaft would move slightly along its axis, it stubbornly refuses to rotate, so this will be investigated further next workparty. I continued sorting & fitting the cables to the field divert contactors & resistors, discovering we are two lengths short, but have several duplicate surplus lengths which have been marked with their positions & could be used as spares or for Renown.

Mark, Pete & Chris attended Booths to recover various EE generator components and also managed to acquire various cab idents from the demic WCRC 47's that had recently arrived.

Dave, Ian and Pete checked all the turbos under the tarpaulin to find a suitable A1 example suitable for repair. The turbo of choice being finally identified as the one right at the back! Extraction took best part of all day before taking it over to the container. Chris T made a start on cleaning the clean air compartment at no.1 end, before Chris B took over this task. The Chris's commenced disconnection of No 1 end blower ready for lifting but progress is currently thwarted by a rather tight impeller nut.