Saturday 4 December

Attendance: 5

Even though there were 5 people for the CoBo day only 2 of them would be working directly on the CoBo. Jason spent his day working on the Class 14. Jim and Kris were carrying out some welding work that needed doing that was to help make Paddy more secure. This left Adam and Graham to work on the CoBo. Jim had repaired a pannier for the Class 15 and he brought this with him on Saturday and this was placed into the container. As it was still bare metal Adam and Graham armed themselves with a paint brush each and applied a coat of anti-corrosive green paint. Unfortunately due to the temperature in Bury the paint was like treacle but with a bit of work the pannier was completed.

With the paint brushes cleaned Adam and Graham moved onto their next task. At the previous working weekend when the two exhausters were lifted into the boiler end of the CoBo they blocked off the floor area that was used to move from one end of the CoBo to the other end. There is a designated walkway through the CoBo but this area had been used for storing pipe work and conduits that need to be cleaned up prior to refitting. So Adam and Graham moved the pipe work from the boiler end of the loco into the engine compartment as this area is nearly complete. Some of the pipes were quite oily but the job was completed quite quickly. Moving the pipes will allow the continuation of prep work on the floor area and the walls in the boiler end.

With access around the exhausters returned the next job was to bolt down the exhausters. When these were lifted into place the bolts were passed through the holes and nuts were screwed on to the end of the bolts. Adam and Graham returned to the workshop to get the required tools for the job. An assortment of spanners and sockets were collected and they returned to the CoBo with the tools. The first exhauster tackled was the one in the middle of the floor. The nuts and bolts for this one were easily accessible, Adam tightening up the bolts with the socket and ratchet while Graham held a spanner onto the nut or vice versa. With the first exhauster completed it was decided that it was time to break for lunch. Adam and Graham also had a course to attend so did not return until mid afternoon.

Following the course Adam and Graham got straight back onto completing the bolting down of the 2 nd exhauster. These two exhausters are originally from a class 81 electric locomotive as the CoBo's exhausters where in a bad way. As with these sorts of things one exhauster fit perfectly on the stand with the holes lining up perfectly. However the second that Adam and Graham had moved onto did not line up with the mounting holes on the stand. Jim had brought some slightly smaller nuts and bolts with him so with the two holes at one end of the exhauster lined with bolts through the two holes at the other end of the exhauster were lined up as best as possible and the largest bolts possible were pushed through. Now onto the task of tightening up the nuts and bolts, the exhauster runs parallel to the loco wall and so the nuts and bolts down one side were straight forward to get at but the two located at the back were a bit more difficult. With all the possible extensions for the ratchet the third nut and bolt were tightened up. The fourth was to provide a bit more difficult. Because of the location of the bolt no extensions bar could be used on the ratchet so Adam ended up squeezing his head and one are down the back of the exhauster to hols a spanned on the nut while Graham and Jim who had joined them reaching over the exhauster with the socket and ratchet. This was very slow going due to the close proximity to the wall as there was very little leverage. But in the end this was completed and once Adam and Jim had extracted themselves from the tight spaces the job had been completed.

One final job for the day was to remove three tread plates within the boiler area. Some screws fixed the tread plates down so Graham removed these screws and lifted the plates and moved them to one side. This now exposes more floor that can be needle gunned and drelled at a later date. With that complete all the tools were returned to the workshop and put away and with that Graham and Jim cleaned themselves up and left.

ne last job for Adam and Jason to complete before they finished for the day was to finish painting the pannier from earlier. They went to the container and turned the pannier over so that the bottom of it could be coated in the green anti-corrosive paint. This was completed quickly and once the brushes had been cleaned up they all finished for the day.

The next working weekend is 8/9 January. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton