Saturday 23rd September: First a warm welcome to a new volunteer, Rob Mason, who read through our website and looked at Jason's restoration fotopic site and decided it would be good to get involved, he enjoyed his day so much he is coming back, thanks Rob!

Down to business; Saturday saw the continuation of preparation for the planned October lifts and completion of outstanding jobs and further renovation work. The fan cowl had a coat of gloss on the inside, the outside will be tackled when the loco is at Castlecroft where we can lift it out of the No2 end. Jim finished off the welding on the inside of the No.1 end where a replacement panel had been welded in previously. Armed with a shiny new welder he was able to give a decent seam weld on the inside. He also cut out a further piece of rotten metal on the right-hand side of the compartment where the rust was pushing the skin away from the frame.

Other work saw the cooler group roof panel receive a coat of protective green gloss on the exterior, the marker lamp units were progressed in the paint scheme, the fan drive bearing housing stays were also glossed. A start was made on drelling and painting the fan drive mesh guards and the water thermostat mounting bracket. Pipework from the engine room was identified and sorted out and moved into another area of the coach ready for future drelling. The areas still in grey undercoat in the No1 compartment were given a coat of grey gloss which had previously been missed due to lack of paint!

The last engine mounting bolt was loosened off in readiness for the lift and the last left hand generator bulkhead plate removed.

Meanwhile while all this was going on, a small team was up at Castlecroft organising and craning making a clear space in the power unit park for when the 16YHXL that is in D8233 at present is lifted out. Many items need Timmy's Crane Shifting Services such as Traction motors and various aux motors, these were lifted out the way into one area and sheeted over, which leaves a nice 16YHXL shaped space between the V12 Crossley and the V8 Crossley from D5705.

Sunday 24th September: More coats of paint were added to various items, mesh guards, thermostat bracket, marker light bowls, dummy radiator shutters. More preparation work for the shunt of D8233 in a few weekends time was done. Various items that were stored under the coach and D8233 were relocated to inside the coach, so when we come to move D8233 all is safe, these were two air tanks, fire bottle, generator compartment bulkhead plates, roof trim, header tank roof panel, vokes oil wetter air filter panels. Six of the motor bearing caps that were located on the running board were moved into the nose compartment for safe travel and both exhausters were secured to the side frames and running board.

The opportunity was taken to have a tidy up of the left hand side of the power unit where various nuts/bolts and plates were left these items being moved into the coach for future use. A start was made on drelling the fan roof cover ready for painting and two covers over the two side engine room drain sumps were removed to see what the state was inside (oily!), basically all the drains from the turbos, various galleries off the power unit run into these and down to one output drain.

Again up at Castlecroft more part relocation was happening utilising the forklift and the 10 ton road crane. So we are now ready for October the 12th/13th & 14th, where D8233 will be shunted to Castlecroft, the roof removed, side frame removed, generator set removed and the old 16YHXL craned out. A great weekends graft by all involved, thank you to all.

If you feel you can help out in anyway, please don't hesitate to contact Chris Tatton.

Exciting times are ahead of us - be a part of it!