April / May progress...
14 May 2006 - thanks to Ben for this article
Second main visit of the year to the Colne Valley on 13 May - we were lucky with the weather (despite threatening skies on more than one occasion!) and we even had a bit of a barbecue!
Mark arrived yesterday to make a head start on some of the mechanical and electrical bits and pieces and even stayed overnight in the cab of the Matisa! (Thats dedication to the cause! and I suspect the first time anyone has spent the night in there?!)
Today he continued with the electrics while myself and Vince prepared and painted the panelling to the engine area. The machine is now almost totally grey and looking better and better with every visit. Our aim at the moment is to deal with the worst remaining areas of rust so that the bodywork is smoothed and sealed ready for final preparation and its first new coat of yellow. We are currently looking into paint specification, colours and prices.
We also took a look at the Permaquip - the rear roller shutter seems to be totally seized and may have to be removed and replaced with something more suitable...
This was pretty much the sum of the work carried out this weekend, but one other thing worth mentioning is the issue we have with one of the Matisa's fuel tanks! The machine has two tanks (which were both nearly full when we acquired it!) but we noticed recently that one has a small leak. A few weeks ago Mark drained most of the fuel from the leaking tank into drums for temporary storage in preparation for it's repair. However this involves removing the tank which means taking up the walkway above and this is proving quite tricky at the moment!
Mark also made a repeat visit up to York on 29 April to collect yet more spares from our contact at Fastline. Once again we are very grateful for their continued support, advice and supplies whilst they carry out refurbishment of their tamper fleet.
Hopefully our trips will be more frequent now the days are longer so watch this space!
Finally have a look [url=http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/OTPPG/files/]here[/url] for our caption competition on the Yahoogroup!
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