GEC ZD10606

I first laid my eyes upon a full installation of these a few years ago in a nearby town on a car park, a totally untouched installation of around 12 or so. They all ran 250w SON lamps, and of the few that were dayburning they looked disappointingly dim in comparison to the gamma 3's I've seen about.

Earlier in the year this one was removed and placed in a skip, which subsequently was saved by a contact and passed on to me, with huge huge thanks for their efforts in helping. I was told it was removed because the control gear had failed and was causing a circuit to trip that also had a parking machine on.

Getting it home, I immediately tried opening it, but the top nut was jammed, this usually happening from old hardening grease or simply that it had been overtightened. A bit of heat soon saw it turning, and once inside, I was astonished at its overengineered and complex build in comparison to the Gamma 3. Its hardly surprising they ended up being the most popular 250w/400w post top lantern. Owing to how close the lamp is to the spigot, again its clear to see why the gamma 3 was far superior, but since these lanterns could also take 90w SOX, part of me wonders if that's what these were always intended to take anyway and the MBF/SON option was merely more than competition.

Part of the column still remained in the spigot, but annoyingly all 4 grub screws were seized, a curse of anything GEC. Amazingly no other screws were seized, allowing me to strip the lantern down to just the spigot. Whoever installed the lantern originally only done the screws up lightly, and some gentle taps with a hammer soon released it from the column. A bit of heat and my impact gun, all 4 grubs now turn freely.

Restoration will see a return to the original copper bronze paint, and a good polish and clean of internal components and the canopy owing to those areas being in a really good condition.