Attendance 1:

There were five people in total on Saturday, three would spend the day working on D9531 and one – Jason -  would spend the day paint the engine block on the class 15 as the exhaust on one side is due to be refitted imminently. So this left Adam to work on the ‘Object’ for the day.

There has been one job that has been waiting to be completed for a while and so Adam decided that this was the day to complete it. There is a thin channel that runs down between the back of the main electrical conduit and the wall in the boiler end. Over the years probably from construction days this channel has filled up with oil, muck and rust. And as Adam found out there was over an inch of oily muck in places. First part of the job for Adam was to scrape as much of the muck to loosen it at the generator end of the boiler room (the channel is split into two by the water filler) and then using a Hoover remove the muck from the channel. This was very awkward in places as there are pipes running down this channel. After a good hour or so the worst of it was removed and at this stage Adam applied a lot of engine degreaser into the channel and onto the pipes that run through the channel.

To allow the engine degreaser to soak in Adam moved onto the cab end of the channel. The same principle was applied by using a screw driver to loosen the muck and then using a Hoover remove it from the channel. This was very awkward again but this was because of a cooker situated on the wall which Adam removed to stop him banging his head as often. Next to the external cab door this proved very challenging as the oily muck had seemed to ‘set’. A lot of banging and chipping took place and then suddenly the lump started to budge and once a screw driver was placed into the lump it came out in one piece! With that final piece removed engine degreaser was poured into the channel and spread over everything and left to soak. Adam took this opportunity to have some lunch……

So returning after lunch Adam had brought with him a conduit pipe that he had removed a few months previous that had been drelled and painted into orange. Adam refitted this, it only taking a couple of minutes to complete. Then it was back to the channels. Next up Adam armed himself with a wire brush and gave both channels a brushing to disturb and remove the last of the muck. This was quite time consuming due to the narrowness of the caps. To help with this Adam used a garden cane taped to the handle of the wire brush so that he could get the brush into the narrowest areas. After a wipe out with some clothes Adam pour more Engine Degreaser into the channels and left it to soak for a short while longer. After a final wipe down it was ready for a few coats of paint. Unfortunately Adam didn’t have time to complete the painting so this will have to wait to next time. And that brought Saturday’s proceedings to an end………

The next working weekend is July 23/24. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton