Sat 13th Nov
A clear day and plenty to do down at Coventry. Very impressed with the new airport security gate, and it works just as you’d expect. It caused none of the access problems that we had worried about.
We had two new volunteers working today – Mark, and Lee. Lee is pretty handy with a camera, and I’m hoping he’s going to drop in here and post some of the photo’s he took.
Vic Marriot has started on the job of removing all the seized access panels under the wing, and armed with penetrating fluid, screwdrivers, a drill, and various other evil looking implements he started ‘persuading’ them to come off as they should. The more stubborn ones will be drilled and tapped.
Gary Thorn is still rubbing down unpainted areas, as while we can’t get paint most days now we need to keep on top of the preparation and cleaning just in case we gat a chance to get some paint on. It also prevents the green algae growing back on the unpainted areas.
One of the important jobs this week was to again check the fuel tanks. After finding water in there last week, the tank cap has been taped up and sealed. There is now no water getting in there, so wherever it’s getting in is obviously around that area – whether its a blocked drain or not I don’t know. We were very happy when all tanks showed bright blue good fuel at the drains.
Rich Marriot cracked on with finishing the installation of the No 4 pre-oiling pump, and when he had finished, there only remains a little electrical work, and the replacement of a severed pipe before the system is complete. Once it has passed it’s checks, that job will be finished totally – and will be a unique system for an Avro Shackleton.
To test the system requires oil and the Shackleton drinks a lot of it. An error somewhere in the order means you get what we did – the correct oil, 80 gallons or so, from the correct manufacturer, in the correct viscosity, but in quart bottles!!!! 37 boxes of them in total, or around 400 bottles.
The task was met with good humour and by sharing them out between the engines, and assigning one man to each engine to start filling, the job was done fairly quickly.
One task that proved surprisingly involved was the latches for the spinner on No 3 prop. The spinner is secured by six spring loaded latches, that have a slotted screw in the top. They are supposed to turn through 90 degrees to lock them, to prevent the spinner coming off when the engine is running. No 3and 4 (possibly the others too) have always been stiff and a pain to lock. This stiffness turned out to be dirt and solidified grease, and once stripped cleaned and refitted, they lock with a satisfying “click”.
As you can guess… most of our work now is geared towards waking WR963 up, it’s not going to be long now. We’re probably no more than a couple of weeks off. Stay tuned..
Regards,
Ric
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