Since some help was available, I decided to get a jump on the inspection process and start on car 36 today. Greg Ceurvorst was willing and able to help, and that made a huge difference. It's greatly appreciated, you may be sure.
I was too busy to take many pictures, although we've published several pictures of the inspection process before. But Greg had his smart phone along, and provided several good ones.
The 36 at the door of the barn, before being brought out for its trip to the pit:
The motor truck over the pit:
Looking west along the track towards the 300:
I can pretend I'm enjoying this, if I don't have to keep it up for very long.
And looking out the door along the pit lead. In the distance is our blue flag.
The inspection process went well, and there were no major problems that couldn't be fixed. The feed valve was stuck open, but as usual a little disassembly and cleaning corrected that. One thing that I had not seen before was that we found a contactor that had welded itself shut:
Just touching the tips with a screwdriver was enough to free them, although of course that's not much help when the car is running. I have several replacement tips on hand, so it didn't take long to replace them. But this is something we should keep an eye on. Fortunately, it doesn't take long to open the box and check all the contactors if there's any question. I might point out that having one contactor welded closed is generally not a serious problem, as long as it's discovered in time; you would have to have at least three closed to get to the point where you cannot shut off power, other than by pulling the pole.
Although I didn't take any pictures of the car itself, I did get a snap of Greg's nifty truck:
And as usual on a Wednesday, there were lots of people working on their various projects, but as I mentioned I didn't get much of a chance to photograph them. Later, while talking to Norm and Jeff about the contactor problem, they proudly showed me the progress being made on the front end of the 28, with the help of the welders from Belvidere:
There are a few things to finish up on the 36's inspection, all of which are easily done in Barn 8. And I will repeat that we can always use more help on inspections. It's always good to have another pair or two of eyes to look for possible issues.