The Class 15 Preservation Society has launched an appeal to raise the funds to complete work on the Crossley V8 engine.

The society is restoring D5705 to working condition and is based at the East Lancashire Railway.

The Crossley HSTVEE8, designed in the 1950s, was last turned over in 1974 and hasn’t been in the loco in three decades, having been stored at Castlecroft and Baron Street works.

The society had previously sourced a Crossley V12 as a donor engine and had stripped this for parts back in 2018.

The V8 has been sent off to Gen Elec in Lincolnshire for restoration. Whilst this has been delayed due to a backlog of other projects, work has now started on restoring the V8, and the work completed to date includes pre-cleaning the Bedplate, fitting the main bearing caps and calibrating the pockets.

Work has also been completed on fitting the original bearings and checking the bearing nips for straightness, as they were found to be out of alignment.

Finally, the crankcase has been cleaned and inspected.

Gen Elec has also quoted £16,680+vat for the work completed already, as well as other work that needs completing, and this includes

• Making the journals and pins into a serviceable condition, except for number 5 (thrust) journal, which is damaged and will need machining and grinding, with the society quoting that around 25 thousandths of an inch needs to be removed
• Main bearings remetalled with white-metal and machining
• Fit crank in new bearings
• Check running clearance as per the manufacturer’s data.

With the society completing restorations of both D5705 and Type 1 D8233, they rely on volunteers and means that funding is limited. The project has therefore launched an appeal to raise funds to help get the engine restoration completed and returned to Bury.

There are a number of ways to donate. Firstly, you can donate via PayPal using this link, or alternatively, you can get in touch with the society for official bank details via their website or their Facebook page.

If you are unable to leave a note, you can send money from your PayPal account to [email protected] and also provide an additional note to the donation