1956 Red Goddess - No socks for this birthday!

Leedle bit of work on the old girl this weekend. Got the tilt off for the bows to go to Weldtec for a 100mm extension so the cab roof and the tilt finally line up after the cab lift. At the same time we're going to have 2 more longitudinal roof bars retro fitted, one each side, to reduce the puddling on top of the tilt. My cunning plan #23179 of using webbing was an improvement but not wholly successful see below





Having ascertained that it was the gearbox mounts that had moved we didn't need to move her on to hardstanding so we could use my patented 'Log/stump riser' system to get a 5 ton bottle jack to the right height.



The problem was that the 63 year old original gearbox mounts had collapsed!



Who'd have guessed that? Me of course, but hindsight is 20-20 vision. A new design was mocked up with the help of a pencil and a piece of cardboard and should be ready for next weekend.

The NEC is only 9 weeks away. Time to panic!

It's an exhaust bandage. We're going to make up a new system but as this year was all about shakedown/shakeapart runs it would have been daft in case stuff had to be moved.

Aye lad, I remembers it well. My miner Granddad had a pitman's terrace 'cottage' at the back o' the Bootses factory in Beeston. You know, long row, 2 up / 2 down with the crapper down the little garden past the little beds of leeks that grew so well in the sooty, damp ground for some reason. When I stayed I had to sleep on an old sofa in the back parlour and he always said that if I got caught short at night, because they didn't have a second chamberpot, just climb up the kitchen chair and go in the sink rather than creep in the dark to the little brick outhouse. What you don't do is creep upstairs at 3am and wake your snoring granddad with the phrase ' Granddad I did what you said but do you have any toilet paper?'. I was not the favourite grandchild for a while.

I was well acquainted with Bootses bandages as being a rather solitary child (and an effete southerner to boot when on my northern holidays) some rough boys pushed me into Bulwell Bogs for a laugh. At the time this was a section of industrial river with turgid water, sucking ooze and a fine selection of discarded housewares and old bikes. I managed to twist out of the way of the ooze, hoping to land in the water, but instead hit the side of my head on an old bedstead. You know what head wounds bleed like and I had to walk half a mile, sopping wet and bleeding like a stuck pig back to Granddads. The rough boys had legged it as soon a my head appeared over the side of the river bank. As soon as he saw me Granddad wrapped my head in one of his old vests, not thank God his old pants (I'd seen those) and carried me to the doctors. Child bleeding to death gets you to see the doctor pretty sharpish, a quick swab, flush with iodine, 12 stitches and a turban of Bootses bandage. Back to Granddads, put to bed on the sofa, no painkillers except for an aspirin before sleep but I was allowed to listen to what I wanted on the radio for the first time ever and he bought me a Beano. I had a mild notoriety with the local kids for a short while, asking to see the stitches and commenting on my bright purple ear from the iodine.

A week later I went home down south and all that came about from it was the conviction of my friends that it really was grim 'oop north and an interesting scar.

Sometimes as my hair thins someone new will mention it and I just tell them that I had to have my tonsils out the hard way.

Kid's today don't know how easy they have it!

I agree, almost indestructible stuff. Having been patched up with it more times than I care to remember by my gran, I can even smell it sat here thinking about it... 

of course, you wer lucky to 'av a sink. if we got caught short we had to pish in the glass on nans bedside table. she never did work out why her steradent kept going green.

Another part has arrived for the air system





Off to the pneumatics place later in the week for the rest of the parts. It's so nice to have a bl00dy big engine compressor available for the air supply.

Yes, it's got twin needles so I can see what's in the front and back set. Or if I was crazy and fast enough I could make them left and right and set up for corners on the fly

Anybody know if 1/4 inch and 6mm hose is interchangeable?

Not where push in fittings are concerned, no. Adaptors to go from one to the other are off the shelf though.

I looked at air seats but there was two problems, height and the strength of the floor. Also it wouldn't look very 'classic'