Our 'Self-propelled Pump'

Started sanding the inside today, lots of fiddly corners so I drafted in some help.... Also took the engine covers off which is double skinned. This is to provide air cooling across the engine in normal running. I was pretty sure that it wasn't working, I found a mouse house in the engine pipe! Something had made itself very much at home in the pipe! Hopefully no other nibbling of wires!

Being in lock down means that we aren't going to be going out much this year in Tiny, all of the shows have cancelled and I can't actually justify an 'essential journey' in her.  I have stripped the cab back so I can start painting the cab - all the seats are out and everything is cleaned down ready for sanding. The seats were a proper pain - no captive nuts and four different bolt lengths and sizes and only one of me to do it!  A bit of research on the paint from some friendly forums presented the paint codes:  Bs381c 369     Biscuit,          Inside the lockers Bs381c 384     Light straw,    cab upper panels Bs381c 412     Dark brown,   cab lower panels Its a coach enamel paint which can be brushed onto a primed surface so have ordered some primer and 'Light Straw' for the upper part of the cab. I want to see what finish I get with a brush - it has a 'long wet edge' which is a term I never knew existed that means it takes a while to dry

These two had been on the roof for 65 years! The ceiling hook is for pulling down burning debris and the shod bar is the old 'jaws of life' for prying open car doors and the like.  The wood wasn't rotten thankfully, just grey and rusty - in surprisingly good condition. I sanded them back which took quite a while and gave them a good drink of Danish Oil and then took the metal back to bare with a grinder and gave it a good covering of Hammerite smooth. They have come up very well - that Shod bar is super heavy.

In the last post I showed a strange wooden block I nearly threw out.... I did some research via various forums and one fine chap knew someone who knew someone.... I sent the pictures of the wooden blocks to a friend who used to work for the Home Office and looked after Goddesses ''et al' at Raydon Aerodrome in Suffolk.  He phoned a friend, another ex Home Office man, and he said that the blocks are for placing between the springs and the chassis rails to take the weight of the vehicle in lay up and prevent long term distortion of the springs.  Apparently there should be four of them, but they were not kept in the Goddesses so yours is a find indeed.  They were marked as to which spring they went on NFU stands for Nearside Front Upper as there were blocks that went underneath to take the weight of the axles as well which were marked Lower. The holes originally had a rope handle in them. Each month  the wheels spun to a new position to even out what weight was left

Today I got a few electrical niggles sorted and then got distracted into a bit of Green Goddess Powered gardening.  The locker lights were not working and it ended up just being a few duff connections. The indicator lights for the lockers lights were also not working, needed a bit of soldering on the back, an easy fix! All the locker lights now work except one which needs a new bulb.  An interesting unintended fix was the central flashers too - while poking around trying to fix the locker lights I found a loose connection and the front orange flashers now work!  I also found this block in the lockers - no idea what it is, nearly chucked it out, but it is branded, need to do some research!  I then got distracted by getting Tiny to give me a leg up to cut some trees. Very useful....