News from the "front line" at Cranmore suggests that further work has been done to the No.2 cab front this week.
At Williton, with help from Tony T-B the exhauster was re-assembled and tested again. The test installation utilising the loco batteries and a set of car jump leads is shown in the pictures.
But the test gauge still refused to go above (should it be below?) about 10 inches of vacuum, same as before it was stripped down last Sunday, very disappointing to say the least!
This was despite the fact that a hand placed over the end of the vacuum pipe seemed to indicate plenty of "suck".
So as the Class 03 was being run in the yard, an opportunity to check the test gauge presented itself.
The gauge was attached to the loco vacuum pipe and a level of 21 inches of vacuum was created as indicated by the cab gauge, but the test gauge still did not go beyond about 10 inches of vacuum.
So the damn test gauge was defective and there had been no problem with the exhauster after all!
So trying to put a positive slant on it, at least I had given the blades a thorough examination that they would not otherwise have had, but could have done without the practice!
The exhauster can now be painted.
The original flexible mounts were damaged beyond repair and new ones are now virtually impossible to obtain.
So the details were sent to a company at Warminster and they offerred a modern mount that would do the job.
Four such mounts have been obtained and one was trial fitted to the exhauster today. The mounting points on the loco will need modification to accomodate these but as they require rebuliding anyway due to corrosion, this should not be too much of a problem.
