Class 33 ("Crompton") diesel, #D6593

    .... immediately after repainting at Ropley in Summer 1997

   

Photo by Steve Merchant  - Loco Shed volunteer This engine, whilst on hire for mainline work in Cardiff in mid-March 1998, threw big-end cap-bolts. Opening the crankcase, for the first time since its pre-preservation life, revealed that all the cap bolts were only finger-tight!  They had been locked like that, and the engine had been run for thousands of miles, as the polishing action of the nuts' movement proved.  Fortunately, the bolt that eventually came adrift bent itself double against the 'swan-neck' oil scavenger  pipe.   It made a big hole in it and engine oil pressure was lost, so the engine automatically shut itself down without further damage.  Even the swan-neck is salvageable.   Eight cylinders, four big-end bolts per big-end, so it was a one-in-sixteen chance that one of the only two cap-bolts near that pipe would be the first to go; any other would probably have resulted in a thrown con-rod writing off the engine block.  So Sod's Law doesn't always apply.  QED.

"Crompton" Homepage  - for the Class 33 diesel enthusiast 

Other diesels are pictured on  'Diesel Corner'