February & March working party reports.

With the pandemic starting to gently ease and restrictions being lifted, the resumption of work on 240FLM has begun. A number of working parties have taken place during February and March following the return of the appliance from the painters. The main thrust of the works have been to clean and reinstate the many metal trims, exterior fitments and body parts that needed to be removed before the preparation could be done. Cleaning the parts has been pretty laborious and with everything having to be done by hand, it has become a labour of love, rather like any restoration!.
Notwithstanding that, attention has also been turned to the 3 lockers and also the door frames on the front cab. The lockers have now been brought to a full paint finish and a start has been made on refitting the numerous brackets that carry all the equipment. This has been thought provoking as we only have a set of photos that we took the day we stripped the original lockers down, and our rather vague memories of "what went where" ! Of course, some items by default will only fit in certain locations and, given that Turntable Ladders really didn't carry to much equipment, we feel that by the end of this process, we will have restored the locker layouts almost exactly as they were on original issue.
The first locker item to be reinstated has been the TL Rescue/Lowering line on its cradle,harness & guide lines. This was an easy one as we all remembered where that went and with the orginal pictures, it has gone straight in on new fittings which was hand made in house.
The remaining items will be fitted over the next few weeks.

On the mechanical side, the starter motor has undergone an overhaul and a new drive belt sourced and fitted and the second chains to each of the foot locker doors have been fitted which now provides the full strength required to hold up the foot locker doors.

As ever, one of the hydraulic jacks has developed a leak, a problem we are now very familiar with, so the fix will be a strip down and reseal where required so not an overly onerous task.

Due to the continuing shortage of attendees on the working parties caused by ill health, family commitments and other issues, the progress has been slower than expected and thus the appliance will not now be back on the run until the end of April at the earliest.
Photos copyright: Dave Porter, Steve Houston, Pete Weight, Colin Farrington. 240FLM.