CHERTSEY

BOATS, BRIDGES, BOILERS ... IF IT'S GOT RIVETS, I'M RIVETTED
... feminist, atheist, autistic academic and historic narrowboater ...
Likes snooker, beer, tea, rivets and solitude, and is strangely fascinated by the cinema organ.
And there might be something about railways.
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Monday 15 March 2010

Sophisticated pallet

This weekend we're going back up to Stretton with the intention of removing Chertsey's engine.

Cue scary music.

This involves removing the engine room roof, which as far as I know is an event that hasn't taken place for forty years, and may well be the first test of my new sockets and spanners.

On the way we are stopping off to look at another, rebuilt, PD2 which is for sale and which I will very probably be buying (they're cheap compared to Nationals, I can tell you!). If that is as good as it sounds - and I'm sure it will be - then this is the plan (roughly).

Remove current, seized, engine (which is the one, as far as we know, installed by BW in 1960 - the engine number certainly matches the record I've been given) and take it home to be rebuilt at leisure. Do any (steel)work that needs to be done in and around the engine room, clean and paint it; maybe sort out electrics. Install 'new' rebuilt engine as temporary (but indefinite) measure. Finish everything else.

Now, to bring the engine home and tuck it up safely in Jim's workshop, he was going to borrow a flat bed truck from a friend, and have it craned straight onto the truck. But it turns out that the truck is experiencing problems with its electronic locking system (modern vehicles eh?) and that sounded like it might be trouble, so he looked around for alternatives and found this. So now it looks as if we will get ourselves a pallet, have the engine craned onto that in a suitable place for this mob to collect it, after we've left... then meet it at home where lots of big strong men will be waiting to transfer it onto a trolley and roll it into the workshop. Sounds almost too good to be true doesn't it, especially for £45.05. We can but see.

6 comments:

  1. Sorry Sarah
    But you know me and you probably know what's coming next.
    Before you can walk the walk - you need to talk the talk- and we must get you speaking proper so to speak.
    Working boats don't have engine rooms it's an engine 'ole and they certainly don't have a roof it's a cabin top. Yes I know - but I never give up, not until I have you converted!
    Anyway all the best for this weekend. If there's time I might pop over to Stretton on Saturday or Sunday. I'll bring your bucket n chucket, could even go for a pint or something something Saturday night, no pressure, you've got lots to do I know.

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  2. Have you tried these
    https://www.shiply.com/list1.php

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  3. Ah, you're right Blossom, and you know I agree. But it's all right for you, you've been brought up using the proper terms; if I were to start now doing it all self consciously, I would feel - and I fear look - like a bit of a poser. It'll come in the end, as I get used to hearing and seeing it around me. At least I don't use nautical terminology, you have to give me that!

    Now would absolutely love you to visit, but we won't be there til Sunday afternoon, would that do? And then we could certainly roll into Brewood for a few pints and perhaps a bite to eat? If not Sunday, then we'll be there the best part of the week I reckon. Do hope to see you.

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  4. Forty-five quid is a pretty good price, I'd bite their hands off, if I was you. I think I paid rather more than twice that to get the "Ebay" FR2 from the south coast up to Cambridgeshire.

    MP.

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  5. Perhaps that was heavier? Anyway, I now realise we are going to have to have two pallets, a second one to shift the two spare engines (or parts thereof).

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  6. I think the cost was per-pallet and not related to weight. (There was a maximum pallet weight, but that was a handling limit, not a charging one.) See if you can source some heavy-duty plastic wrap to make the spare bits into a suitably secure pallet-shaped parcel: they don't like bits dropping off.

    MP.

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