Friday 19th September. Attendance: Three working members turned out at Bury.

The mission was to load up all of D8233's side doors and transport to Rednal Near Oswestry. The doors are now at Cambrian Powder Paints in Rednal, who will shot blast them and spray prime them with anti corrosive primer, the doors will then be transported back to bury for further painting and repair. One working member stayed behind at Bury and caught up on a few jobs, mainly the drelling of the nose end in readiness for the following day.

Saturday 20th September. Attendance: Two working members today.

The weather was glorious so the tarp was pulled back and the first job was to lather the flywheel nuts and bolts in WD40 to soak in, then the job of applying green anit-corrosive primer to the nose end was started.

While the primer was being applied by one member the other applied a coat of undercoat to the primed conduit in the coach. After a spot of lunch, it was decided to attack the task of removing the flywheel. The splitpins in castlenuts were removed with surprising ease, then one by one the nuts were slackened off and then all bar one removed, some were easy others needed some encouragement. A beam which had been cut and made the previous day was then lifted into position on the inside lip of the roof, the block and tackle hung from it and then hooked up to the flywheel to support it whilst the last bolt was removed, The flywheel was then lowered to the floor in D8233 and then rolled out onto the running board. With hardly any cars present in the car park, the coast was made clear and safe and the flywheel was rolled off D8233 and met the deck with a nice reassuring thud! This flywheel is now surplus to requirements, the one from the removed power unit will need fitting as this is the adapter for the generator armature.

We have now had a very competitive quote for the generators overhaul and it will be leaving Bury in the next few weeks to commence this, we hope it will be back in early spring 2009. With this task now complete and the sun still blazing and hours left in the day, the primer was tested to see if dry, it was so we applied a coat of grey undercoat to the nose end, and then let it bake on with the afternoon sun. Around 6pm, the undercoat was tested to see if dry enough to pull the tarp back over, it was so we covered D8233 back over for the night.

Sunday 21st September. Attendance: Six.

A better turn out today, seems Sundays are getting more popular than Saturdays these days! The day began with pulling the tarp back and applying a coat of green gloss to the nose end. The green gloss that is being applied now to most of the outside bits is only there as a protection coat, there is some way and work to go before we get to the stage of final paint job! The car park side side frame and the rest of the rubber seals removed and then drelling was continued and primer applied. A strip of metal was removed on this side frame by the cab end as it had bulged with rust, this will need a new piece welding into position. The frame behind the removed metal was needle gunned and drelled and then also primed. The wall side frame had other metal that needs replacing identified and marked up and a start has been made on needle gunning both inside and outside faces.

The Tarp was pulled right back over the cab, and more needle gunning took place, the main roof section over the generator area was needle gunned and drelled back to bare metal, there is still some way to go on this roof but a good chunk has now been made ready for painting.

An away team went to Castlecroft to remove the flywheel adaptor off the old power unit, this one again surprisingly easy to remove all the splitpins/nuts & bolts. This was then transported back to the support coach, once the front of the power unit has been painted it will need cleaning up then fitting to the engine. Other tasks undertaken were the glossing of the undercoated conduit and others drelled and primed and the two short hand rails that attach to the cooler group roof were drelled back to shiny metal. Another great weekends progress, we are just hoping that the promise of an Indian summer arrives so we can continue the external drelling and painting work.

The next working weekend is on 4th & 5th October. If you wish to lend a hand please contact Chris Tatton

Above : A sequence of pictures showing progress on the nose end. © C15PS