Mark Burrows, Dave Rolfe, Carl and Sofy Looker and myself were on site today.Mark finished removing the rust from the engine compartment floor in Repulse where he'd previously cut out the rotten floor treads, generating a Sahara-size dust cloud!. Carl drilled out a rusted floor screw in No.2 cab so I could examine the underfloor heater an...

Mark Burrows, Dave Rolfe, Carl and Sofy Looker and myself were on site today.

Mark finished removing the rust from the engine compartment floor in Repulse where he'd previously cut out the rotten floor treads, generating a Sahara-size dust cloud!. Carl drilled out a rusted floor screw in No.2 cab so I could examine the underfloor heater and check the wiring, but we found all the screws (instead of bolts) securing the heater lid had rusted, so will probably need grinding off and new holes drilling for new securing bolts.

Carl and I helped Dave remove the no.2 cab secondman's door from Renown, as Dave found the latch had broken, and the opening handle mechanism was stuck closed. The doors are aluminium but quite heavy. We got the door onto the bench by the container, and by the end of the day, Dave had managed to free the mechanism enough so we could secure the door and make it open. We then re-hung it on Renown.

Carl then assisted Mark hoovering up the debris from the floor.

Sofy helped me bell out the wires from the AWS sunflower, and the cancelling button beneath it in No.1 cab of Repulse. I cleaned the contact surfaces on the base unit and a replacement dial, re-attached the five cables to the sunflower base, and fitted the replacement dial.

On removing the lid of the cancel button, I found the contact mechanism inside was missing, so looked in our stores for a replacement. The countersunk bolts holding the base of the button had rusted, so I had to drill them out, as the contact mechanism can only be fitted with the base off the cab bracket, as there are captive nuts, which drop into cavities behind it if the bolts are removed. In doing the drilling, the base, being old bakelite, broke into three pieces.

I had to angle-grind the remains of the countersunk bolts off, and brought the replacement base from our stores, which is very clean, home to obtain new fixing bolts.