3603 - The story so far.

Well, the story so far is not pleasant bedtime reading! Indeed from very promising beginnings the project nearly got to the point of calling up PVS at Barnsley when things were pretty low!

Upon first inspection and test drive the bus was in great condition for its age, bodywork pretty straight and neat, a fully refreshed interior downstairs which isn't perfect since I would have to hunt out older seat cushions for the NBC moquette - little did I know I would be hunting for seat frames aswell...

Things went from the bus just needing the insurance and tax to drive away, to the rather disastrous situation of a faulty fuel pump! Due to the dust cover being missing over the slider bar, muck had penetrated the slider bar assembly which governs fuel flow on application (or removal) of throttle, causing that bar to stick in the closed position and stall the engine every time my foot was taken off the pedal. Despite many attempts to lubricate this with oils, or free it up with WD-40, it stubbornly would not work and required the sourcing of a replacement pump.

Luckily a local operator, Low Fell Coaches, had a similar Gardner engined Olympian they were sending for scrap which I managed to remove the fuel pump off - many many thanks to Keith from Low Fell for making that happen!!! But - removing the pump is a hell of a lot easier than re-fitting it onto another bus, a task which took many weeks not helped by the bus still being down in Yorkshire.

Again, got someone to thank for it eventually being fitted - Paul Cassidy, you are a legend for all your hard work and persistence! Can't wait to see your Leopard springing out of the shed too!

All while this was going on, a local farmer was allowed to take 6 seat frames to make a shooting brake (a trailer to take people on game shoots) from a scrapped B10M coach that was parked near 3603 - but they took them from 3603 instead causing me to require new seat frames for downstairs! Luckily I can see the silver lining, I wanted to remove the interior anyway to replace the DDA compliant yellow handrails with silver original ones, but would be nice to not have to struggle round for seats!

So things have been quite disastrous so far and I am quite amazed I hadn't given up completely, but at least 3603 has one rally plaque behind her now, with the promise of many more!