On Friday, Matt and me gave the man and auxiliary generators a good clean primarily to remove any dust and debris accumulated during the body work repairs.
A vaccuum cleaner was used to remove any loose material followed by flushing with electrical cleaning fluid and a wipe around. The main gen brushgear was rotated to allow each brush box and insulators to be cleaned as well as the circular busbars. The outside of the armature banding was cleaned as far as practical together with the accessible stator windings. A visual examination of both generators indicated that things appear to be in good order.
On Saturday and Monday the rebuilt instrument panel in No.1 cab was re-wired, the box having been completely renewed due to being badly corroded. In the original arrangements, the incoming wires went to a terminal block and from there flying leads led to the various switches, gauges and lamps. This allowed the panel to be removed from the box if required. But having deemed that this facility was no longer necessary, the cables were extended to the various items using in-line crimps and results in a much neater installation, I reckon!
The switches used were recovered from two spare instrument panels and the traction motor ammeter was also exchanged for a spare which was deemed to be in better condition than the original.
The wiring to the cab heater elements will be run in once those items have been re-fitted.
