On February 24, Don Moriarty and Garry Redmon continued working on Cobra
King. In this photo, Don has found more stampings on the lower hull.
A close-up of the stampings. Apparently the area was ground smooth and
a white box outline was painted before the stampings were applied.
Because this
was location of the reversed bogie station, Don removed some of the paint
to try and determine if there was any damage to the area. He found a soot
residue on both sides of the bogie area indicating that there had once
been a fire and possible minute spalling.
A close-up
of the soot residue on the left side that had been painted over. Cobra
King keeps presenting questions with no answers.
The last return
roller and track guide was removed from the front right bogie station
by Garry Redmon.
Because of
the soot residue found by Don, Garry and curator Charles Lemons began
searching for more damage that was previously undetected and found that
the left idler wheel had suffered impact damage at some time. A large
hole, (red arrow) was found with the metal caved in. Also, a nick in the
wheel was found, (lower red circle) possibly caused by whatever made the
larger hole. Another elongated hole, (right red circle) was also found.
Here Charles uses a screwdriver to scrape away dried mud that had accumulated in the opening. One can better see the smaller hole to the right of the larger one. Also, in the area above Charles' head, another hole was discovered in the metal plate under the engine deck overhang. Perhaps fragments from a close HE strike caused this damage, but that is only speculation.
Looking inside the hole, it was discovered that a portion of the inner surface had been gouged out by an impact. It was then found that a bulge on the outer surface of the wheel corresponded with the damage. In this photo, paint has been removed showing the bulge. Using a long screwdriver to trace the path, it was revealed that whatever made the small hole in back also made the gouge and bulge in the front.