Leyland Lion soon to roar again!

It has been ten years since the oldest bus in the LTT collection last carried passengers and it was back in July 2008 that the bus passed into the collection from Blackpool Transport. In the summer of last year, Lytham Lion 34 was paint stripped and then treated to a repaint in original style blue and white livery.
Solving some on-going mechanical problems has prevented 34's reappearance thus far, but one of the issues on the vacuum braking system has now been solved. Two hairline cracks in a brake pipe were found and repaired but the biggest loss of vacuum was found at a silicon hose which looks like it had been used to replace a cracked piece of original pipe. Unfortunately, when "vacuum" was escaping from the pipe as it was sucking in the flexible pipe inwards & restricting the flow - the opposite of what you would observe on air brakes. There are still a few other issues to sort out, but hopefully the Lion will soon be roaring again!