Since the previous report, group members have been involved in various types of work at the depot, the highlights of which appear below.
One member of the group made good use of a sunny afternoon by putting down some paving slabs to extend the walkway which makes things much more user-friendly particularly in wet weather.
As will be gleaned from this report there has been much stripping and applying of paint so, while the brushes were out, the opportunity was taken to apply a coat of orange paint to a spare cover for a Class 108 Battery Isolation Switch (BIS) box...
Work on the units focussed mostly on the class 127 vehicle 51618 and to a lesser extent the class 105 trailer 56456 thanks to members of the "105 team" once again devoting much of their effort to the class 127.
Some sealant was placed around the bottom of four windows that were suspected of leaking and, as is the case with many jobs, this turned out to be rather more difficult than anticipated. It is now a case of waiting to see what happens when it next rains and hoping that the inside of the vehicle will remain dry.
Various electrical boxes and a couple of covers for the heater fuel tank filler pipes received coats of paint...
and the main front panel of the driver's desk was stripped of paint...
The driver's and secondman's seats were partially dismantled and have been taken away as a "homework" project.
The remaining 'old style' fire detectors were removed from the no.1 engine and replaced with the new 'wiggly wire' which was installed and connected to the fire panel...
The roof vents (removed previously) were drilled with their associated blanking plates and all twenty of them refitted...
To use a phrase that sometimes appeared on televisions in the olden days "Please do not adjust your set!": The marked contrast is due to the vents being painted with white primer. The next job will be for the roof to be cleaned down, a few flaking areas primed, and a coat of grey gloss applied.
A small area of rust was tackled on the next body panel along the driver's side, with an area cut out and a patch manufactured to fit it.
The front bufferbeam had the lamp brackets and one of the vacuum dummies refitted, the jumper sockets were cleaned down ready for painting, and the other vacuum dummy was undercoated in blue...
The battery box was completed, given a coat of chassis black paint and handed over to the engineering department for refitting along with the catches into its cradle. The electrical department will then have to refit the electrical equipment and generate some new cables.
The two varnished window frames that have undergone some restoration were assembled and trial-fitted into the window openings....
All being well they will be fitted and secured at the next meeting.
Recent work has focused mainly on Restoration as will be gleaned from the following report
Members of the "105 team" who, as the name suggests, spend the majority of their time working on the major rebuild of the Class 105 Cravens trailer, managed to secure a brief change of scenery at the weekend when their skills were needed to assist with the bodywork reconstruction on the class 127. They did, however, manage to carry out some jobs on the class 105 before the transfer including the fitting of the last of the insulation supports in the cab ceiling and much measuring for aluminium beading and timber beading. The insides of some electrical boxes belonging to the vehicle also received a coat of white paint.
A sliding door which was refusing to slide properly in 51933 was repaired and two light bulbs which were discovered to be erratic when called on to illuminate the aforementioned job were replaced by ones with a more stable behaviour.
The bodywork repairs to 51618 continued with the following:-
The window frames that had been removed to enable parts of the steel body skin to be replaced were restored by drilling out the broken dowels, glueing in new ones, rubbing down the previous coat of varnish with fine wire wool, and applying a new coat of varnish.
Some timber was trimmed for the bottom of one of the passenger doors to close against and, in the process, it was discovered that there is nothing straightforward about getting a small piece of timber to fit into a given space! The following picture was taken before the trimming started...
Work also continued on the the construction of a replacement battery box. Using the battery box on the other side of the vehicle as a template, various pieces of timber were cut and a trial fitting took place...
This is expected to turn into quite a project because, even when this box is complete, a second one will need to be made to fit inside it.
Some considerable time was spent sorting out the ceiling in the guard's van. This had been a bit 'odd' for many years, taking a virtually-straight line between the ceiling centreline and the wall. After some modification it now follows the curvature of the roof as intended...
All of the twenty roof vents were removed ready for blanking off and sealing. Half of the roof apertures were de-rusted and the other half left for another time. The removed vents were cleaned and primed ready for refitting - something that was quite a task thanks to various layers of sealant and loose paint...
