Working party updates October 2021.

​Although still somewhat limited by the pandemic and various other restrictions. A regular team from the mechanical side of the group have been busy carrying out routine maintenance and fitting replacement parts where needed.
One particular issue with 240FLM has always been the tendency for the appliance to " wander" whilst in motion. This problem is not unique to this vehicle as this fleet of appliances, and probably other vehicles as well, always did have a somewhat loose feel. 
Last year, we were able to obtain quite a number of original parts from another vehicle that was being broken up, one of those parts was a new steering box. over a number of visits, the team managed to extract, with great difficulty, the old one and insert the replacement, which although still old, subsequently proved to be much " tighter making for a more comfortable and precise drive.


Earlier on in the late summer, attention was drawn yet again to one of the 4 hydraulic jacks that are put down to support the body of the vehicle when the ladder is to be got to work. This time, the nearside rear jack was showing signs of an oil leak. The team are now well used to this and replacement seals are still available so without to much fuss, the jack was opened up and the job completed.

Another area  which received attention was the foot locker catches. They had begun to get a little difficult to open cleanly so a little time with a chisel and screwdriver and they once again work easily.

The steering box replacement process

The rear jack seal replacement.

Work on the locker catches.