Sunday 14 th March

Attendance: 2

With all the work on D8233 complete today Jason & Adam decided to do some work on the ‘Object', first off this required a trip down to Castlecroft to have a look around in the Co-Bo world stores shed for some bits & bobs. When they arrived and unlocked the door Chris Guntripp appeared and agreed to assist with the digging out of the bits, it was pipe work that we were mostly looking for but there some other things that needed seeking out; the Air Guide rings from the Traction Motor blower snail ducts were found and recovered, also the armature for the main water pump motor which had previously been missing and thought lost was dug out from the deepest darkest recesses of the shed and put with the rest of the motor and a number of interesting pipes were also retrieved. With their bounty in hand Jason & Adam returned to Baron Street and entered to Co-bo and set bout rearranging the interior of the loco. The sheets of pegboard which had been propped up against the engine room wall were relocated to a roof space above the boiler compartment, the main water pipe work was dug out and Jason with Adams help sorted out the pipes and figured out where they were supposed to go. In this “Pipe Mapping” operation Jason would give a pipe to Adam he would hold it in the position its supposed to be in and Jason would take a reference photo, this was a most useful exercise that will pay dividends later on, most of the pipes were sussed out in this way apart from a few that are still a mystery and will need sorting out later on.

After this they had some lunch and after lunch they went into the boiler section and set about removing the large 2” vacuum pipe work around the central exhauster stand, there were other pipes that had to be removed or re-routed to clear the area for Rob to continue his task of drelling and painting the exhauster stands ready for the auxiliary machines to be refitted later on this year. This ended another day of work on the Co-bo and like Saturday some good work had been achieved and the earlier mission to recover bits in ‘Co-bo World' had proved especially fruitful. All was set for the big lifts tomorrow which would start off with the cooling fan & motor being reassembled and refitted to the loco and now things are really starting to move forward.

Monday 15 th March

Attendance: 4

The day began early on; the tarps were pulled back on both D8233 & D5705. The first job was to lift out the fan motor for D5705 out of D8233's Generator compartment. Using a chain hoist and brute force this was duly lowered down onto a pallet beside D8233. The motor was then up ended and the ‘lampshade' surround fitted to the motor casing. The taper shaft was then cleaned up along with the taper hole in the fan. Copper grease was then applied and the fan lifted onto the shaft. The nut was then tightened down and the hex key securing grub screw tightened and all torque marked up. We then began to fit the side mountings to the motor; till it was pointed out the motor wouldn't fit through the hole in the motor with them on! So they were removed and loosely fitted to D5705.

10 am and Alasdar Morgan arrived with his wagon. After a quick cuppa we slung the fan and motor then lifted it into D5705. With only a minor amount of jiggery the motor was soon back home. The guard mesh was then refitted and the tarp brought back over.

Alasdar then proceeded to start to lift on to his wagon the 4 roof sections off D5705 which were lifted off around a year ago, along with the 2 radiator side grilles. These would be going for shot blasting along with the cab and No2 end from D8233.

The next working weekend on D5705 is 27/28 March. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton

Above : The Co-bo roof sections are loaded onto the bed of the crane truck. © C15PS