Another session on vacuum fitting today saw a small, but dedicated team make further good progress. Tim was feeling under the weather, so took on a supervisory role that allowed some social distancing away from the others. The first job was to remove the cylinder from donor van B785409. Over the years this van has given much needed parts to other projects and on this occasion we needed not only the cylinder, but the outside hanger.

Whilst Paul, Gareth, Chris, and Mark were busy with B785409, Tim was round the corner playing with vacuum pipes. B768248 was hand shunted free from the other wagons and moved up to a flat piece of ground to have a new cylinder fitted. Tim then took the opportunity to get at both ends of the wagon to fit new rubber washers to the vacuum hoses and smarten up the swan necks with some paint.

The next job was to fit the freshly overhauled cylinder to B768248. However, it was then discovered that the outside hanger we had robbed from B785409 didn’t fit! No problem….also in the queue for a new cylinder was B786075, and of course the hanger fitted because it was built under the same lot by Pressed Steel Co. Ltd. as B785409.

An hour later a cylinder was firmly in place under B786075, with final fitting of the valve, branch pipe, and release cord to be completed in the coming week. As with all the vehicles being worked on the brakes were released to get the cylinder in, so plenty of chocks were used for maximum safety.

Also, during the last week, Paul did a bit of homework and overhauled three valves, then passed them to Tim for a bit of paint. This means we have valves ‘on the shelf’ ready to be fitted and three cylinders in the process of being overhauled. The issue we have now is that we have run out of donor vehicles with outside hangers for cylinders, so we are going to have to make some. We are also missing some links between the cylinder piston and the brake arm, so these will also need to be made up. The final job of the day was to push B768248 back to couple to the other vans in the yard. It will receive a cylinder as soon as a hanger has been made.

Tickets are selling fast for our first driving course, so if you’d like to join us then visit our events page to book.