Saturday 6th September. Attendance: Three.

With a list of jobs to be done there was plenty to be getting on with; Jason & Jim arrived around 9:30 and after settling in and having a brew to start the day, pulled back the sheet and went into the nose end to assess the situation as regards to the placement of the traction motor blower.

Later another volunteer arrived in the shape of Jordan Aspin who had come down for a try out to see what it would be like to work on a unique diesel loco like D8233, after the introductions were over he was shown into the Co-Bo where he was given a few painting & degreasing jobs and left to his own devices, this tied him over for the best part of the day and allowed Jason & Jim to get to grips with figuring out where the TMB is to go.

It was moved around and tried it in a number of different positions to work out the best placement for it, this was very time consuming and took up most of the day. In the end we decided to lower it down nearly to the floor and this significantly reduced the amount of modification required for the ducting in the cooler group. We decided to run up the motor using the car battery and checked to see what kind of draught we could get out of the ducting,

Jim & Jordan left around 4pm but Jason stayed on and pulled the sheet back at the No2 end so as to take some measurements inside the compressor compartment and trial fit the TMB stand from the No1 end on the bolt holes on the floor which fitted perfectly. To finish off the air compressor was also test run using the car battery and even though it turned slowly the compressor seemed to be sucking & blowing as it should so test successful.

Sunday 7th September. Attendance: Five.

The Sunday morning saw a bigger turnout, Rob arrived early started by applying a 2nd coat of floor back to the Co-Bo floor, Graham & Dave Mylett then arrived and with Jason also in attendance, they split up into teams and took on specific tasks; Rob & Dave pulled back the sheet & started to needle gun the locos nose end, Jason & Graham took a trip down to Castlecroft to remove the blanking plates from the old engine block, then on return they unbolted & removed the now redundant air starter motors and prepared the blanking plates for refitting in their place to cover up the gaping holes left in the rear timing case, Dave Garnett arrived a little later on and decided to continue with the task of drelling the electrical conduits from the pile on top of the shelving in the workshop.

As Graham had problem finding enough studs & nuts to refit the blanking plates, Jason started to remove the long handrails from the engine room roof section. The weather was intermittent all day and meant that tarpaulin sheet over the loco had to be pulled back and forth quite often, When the needle gunning of the nose end was complete Rob & Dave went over it again with wire wheels to help key the surface ready for painting. Graham completed the fitting of the blanking plates to the engine block.

Jason went into the Co-bo to do a minor job and then had to do a test to see if the green primer paint could be thinned for painting as it will be needed to paint the engine room doors after they are shot blaster, the paint was thinned & a tested with a spray gun, and worked well.

Rob then finished the day off by primer painting the conduits that Dave G had drelled. It has been a very productive weekend, lots of jobs were done on both locos assisted by a unexpectedly good turn out for a Sunday, hopefully the work like this will continue.

The next working weekend is September 20/21. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton