Saturday 27th March

Attendance: 2

With all the recent activity going on with D8233 it was good to get back to a normal working weekend on the Co-Bo, Jason arrived early and would be on his own for the morning session. He began the day with a trip up the Castlecroft to go up town for breakfast and on return he went into the Co-bo spares garage to pick up a few items and search for a missing coolant pipe that he found plus collected up some bits that he needed for pipe work mocking up and returned to Baron st.

Back in the coach workshop Jason started to drell up the auxiliary water pump casing parts that he had bought down from Co-bo world, these he needed to be able to fit together some of the coolant pipes so that he could mock up the top section of the heat exchanger coolant circuit. The old nuts and studs that attached the outer casing were a bit rusty and semi seized so Jason used the blow torch to heat them up before cracking the nuts off, then all the studs and bolts were cleaned before Jason went into the loco to start assembly on the pipe system.

In the loco Jason soon attached the pump casing to the main feed pipe and then it was a case of fitting up the cross pipe that had previously been missing but had found in the Co-bo store earlier. This was the final missing piece of the jigsaw for the auxiliary cooling circuit and as it sort of hangs in space (as it doesn't have the radiator pipe connections to attach to) he had to temporarily string it up with wire and rope but when the link pipe from the pump was fitted and bolted up the pipe became more solid & stable. Next it was the long thin feed pipe from the header tank and then all what was left to fit was the dead end pipe on the opposite side, but for some reason it didn't seem to be around which was strange as Jason had used it during the pipe mapping he did with Adam less than a fortnight ago, he searched for it without success before Andy Walton turned up and it was decided to go for lunch.

After food Jason took Andy down to the co-bo tent but before that Jason made a mobile call to Rob to ask about the missing pipe and it turns out he'd taken it home to work on so with that matter resolved Jason showed Andy the roof sections off the co-bo that had come back from shot blasting sprayed in grey primer and ready for painting. As we don't have any exterior paint for the roofs yet they decided to start on painting the inside of the hatches. The short roof sections were easier to access so they would be worked on first, the roofs have a number of tie down fitting on the inside and these had to removed where possible so that painting could be done, Jason & Andy spend some time taking the nuts off the security links and then tried to undo the large screw bolts that are on one side of the doors only.

Of the four screws three were seized and attempts with the blow torch to heat them up was unsuccessful, these would need some serious heat to get them to shift so they have been left for now. Andy got the paint and some brushes but there was only a dribble left in the tin so he decided to start in the middle with raised vent sections and work his way outwards. Jason returned to the loco to do some more pipe mapping, The grey crankcase exhauster pipes that temporarily located last time needed a little help to fit properly and that required a recess in one of the floor plate supports to be ground out, with that done the pipe fitted much better and could be bolted down onto the floor flange at one end, after this Jason mocked up the drain pipes on the R/H side floor so that he could see how the lower radiator pipes fitted into them, with that figured out Andy came in and announced that the gloss paint he had been using was all used up.

Jason checked the roof panels and saw that Andy had managed to paint the recessed vents and just run out of paint while starting on the inner section off the roof flat panelling so some more paint would need buying tomorrow, but for now Jason asked Andy to assist him in mocking up the coolant pipework on the engine. With all the pipes they needed bought down from the loco to the tent they offered up the piped to the engine; they fitted up the feed pipe for the heat exchanger that passes under the sump and the long coolant feed pipe that threads though a clamp and attaches to a flange behind the heat exchanger, this pipe was a really awkward fit but eventually it was done, after this Andy went around the engine cleaning off all the bits of string, rope and rubbish that it had accumulated while sat under the tarp in castlecroft yard, Jason went around the cab of the 15 which is now residing in the tent and took reference pics of some rust pitting and welding repairs that will need doing, after this Andy had to depart but Jason had another job to do before the end of play today.

The cooling fan motor had recently been craned back into the loco, but it had only been loosely located with a couple of bolts, so Jason set about refitting the remaining bolts and locating the fan on its mounts properly, some of the original bolts that attach the mounting brackets to the motor had gone AWOL so Jason had found some suitable bolts as replacements that were a tad too long so he had to cut them down and clean the threads up afterwards so that they would start properly, he first loose fitted the motor bolts one of which proved to be a bit difficult and required a quick ‘hoick' on the motor with a jimmy bar to get it to go in, that done the remaining bracket bolts were started and then everything was tightened down carefully, with Jason periodically spinning the fan by hand to make sure that it cleared the cowl, with that all done it really was time to pack everything away. It had been a useful days work, we'd increased our understanding of the pipework on the loco and made a start on painting the roof sections and secured the fan motor but tomorrow is another day.

Sunday 28th March

Attendance: 2

Today Jason was joined by Dave Garnett who would continue his work with fashioning batons for the far cab. Jason went into the loco and had to sort out the pile of pipes at the far end, as they were a little disorganised. Also he was looking to dig out some of the flexible pipes that attach to the engine. most of the oil system pipework was moved to the L/H floor space in the engine room under the walkway tread plate, the rest was placed opposite the boiler space and two large and one small engine flexible pipe were found and put on the top of the pile, Meanwhile Dave was making use of the bandsaw that we had got for him to make the task of shaping the battens easier for him, Jason was back in the workshop and after locating a conduit that he believed belongs to the fan motor he dug out the terminal box set about drelling it and the conduit up, when that was done he took them into the loco for offering up to the fan motor, and as it turned out the box and conduit are the ones from the motor however a thin brass nut on the terminal hole of the motor which was fitted when solutions overhauled it was fouling the terminal box mounting ring, so Jason decided to grind out a notch in the box mounting to clear the nut and allow it to fit properly.

Dave was in and out of the workshop making fine adjustments to the fit of the battens he was working on, however on returning to use the bandsaw the blade snapped and closer inspection revealed that it had broken at the join in the blade so that was that, Jason said he would get some more blades for the saw and Dave had to carry on by using the jigsaw. Jason meanwhile had been in the workshop grinding a section of the mounting ring on the terminal box, after then he found some mounting bolts and cleaned out the fine threads using a tap, he then returned to the loco and mock fitted the Terminal box onto the motor and then fitted up the conduit, as a finishing touch the padded guard disc made of wood, foam & leather was re-attached to the bottom of the motor. This is to stop people from clouting their heads on the underside of the motor when they walk through the cooler group, by now it was getting on for lunch time so Jason & Dave stopped for food.

After lunch Jason drove down to B&Q to buy some more Hemp replacement paint and came back with a 5 litre tin of the stuff that should keep things going for some considerable time, Jason then settled down to complete the gloss painting of the inside of the small roof sections with the new paint this took most of the afternoon, Dave had done quite a bit of battening in the far cab and had made considerable progress but time was getting on and he began to pack his tools away and secure the co-bo, Jason had bought the fan motor terminal box and conduit into the workshop so that he could finish drelling then and apply the green primer to it that completed the days work on D5705, work on the Co-bo is going to step up a gear in the coming months as its planned to refit the roof sections, Exhausters and radiator tank & frame assemblies later on in the year but there is lots of preparation work to be done in the mean time, so we have got our work cut out for us.

The next working weekend on D5705 is 24/25 April. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton

Above : Both the short roof section are now fully interior gloss painted. © C15PS