Re: What's the worst part of a valve gear overhaul ... 
| November 23, 2012 07:27PM |
Russo Loco Wrote:
=======================================================
> stevejb123 Wrote:
> ===================================
> > The worst running gear job I ever worked on was
> > an Inverted Stephenson gear which had slipped
> > an eccentric ... before we put it back in
> we had
> > Woodruff keys installed on all 4 eccentrics.
>
>
> Wow, Steve -
>
> That sounds a LOT worse than the job Phil Reader
> had a couple of years ago helping rebuild Fillmore
> & Western's #14. I helped a little for a
> couple of weeks, when he was re-assembling the
> Stephenson valve gear (see the thread starting
> with
> [ngdiscussion.net]).
> IMHO, the crew that took the engine apart had been
> a bit over-enthusiastic, and had unnecessarily
> taken the valve gear completely apart.
> Anyway, Phil started to put things back together
> while I searched through a big pile of parts
> half-hidden in the weeds - mostly from diseasels -
> trying to find the rest of the pieces. I
> eventually lucked out and found the missing links,
> so then all we had to do was figure out which went
> on the left and which on the right, and whether
> the arms connected to the top or the bottom of the
> links. At least nothing was bent or broken, and
> the eccentrics were still in place on the axles!
>
> - Rüsso
> p.s. If you tried to install Woodruff keys on all
> of the missing links & eccentrics here on the
> NGDF, you'd probably run out of parts ...
>
a similar thing happened to me once. I got called in to reassemble a 3 ft gauge 4-4-0 that someone else had taken completely apart. There was the cab sitting in one corner of the shop, the boiler on blocks outside the door and the frame on sawhorses. The rest of the locomotive was in a big pile of parts in a heap on the floor. The original contractor had been fired from the job and nobody had bothered to make any drawings, take photos or tag and label the parts...
the job went to hades when we unpacked the new cylinders and discovered the mounting holes had been drilled mirror image to what was on the frame
it was awful
=======================================================
> stevejb123 Wrote:
> ===================================
> > The worst running gear job I ever worked on was
> > an Inverted Stephenson gear which had slipped
> > an eccentric ... before we put it back in
> we had
> > Woodruff keys installed on all 4 eccentrics.
>
>
> Wow, Steve -
>
> That sounds a LOT worse than the job Phil Reader
> had a couple of years ago helping rebuild Fillmore
> & Western's #14. I helped a little for a
> couple of weeks, when he was re-assembling the
> Stephenson valve gear (see the thread starting
> with
> [ngdiscussion.net]).
> IMHO, the crew that took the engine apart had been
> a bit over-enthusiastic, and had unnecessarily
> taken the valve gear completely apart.
> Anyway, Phil started to put things back together
> while I searched through a big pile of parts
> half-hidden in the weeds - mostly from diseasels -
> trying to find the rest of the pieces. I
> eventually lucked out and found the missing links,
> so then all we had to do was figure out which went
> on the left and which on the right, and whether
> the arms connected to the top or the bottom of the
> links. At least nothing was bent or broken, and
> the eccentrics were still in place on the axles!
>
> - Rüsso
> p.s. If you tried to install Woodruff keys on all
> of the missing links & eccentrics here on the
> NGDF, you'd probably run out of parts ...
>
a similar thing happened to me once. I got called in to reassemble a 3 ft gauge 4-4-0 that someone else had taken completely apart. There was the cab sitting in one corner of the shop, the boiler on blocks outside the door and the frame on sawhorses. The rest of the locomotive was in a big pile of parts in a heap on the floor. The original contractor had been fired from the job and nobody had bothered to make any drawings, take photos or tag and label the parts...
the job went to hades when we unpacked the new cylinders and discovered the mounting holes had been drilled mirror image to what was on the frame
it was awful
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488 stops for water at Los Pinos tank on closing day Oct. 1979. Photo courtesy Don Richter
The NGDF was started by Don Richter and is currently operated in his memory by Nathan Holmes and others. Others who have contributed to the upkeep of this board are (in no particular order): Charles McCandless, Everett Lueck, Ted Wilton, Cole Adams, James Bane, John Moellmer, Jon Bentz, Linn Moedinger, lloyd lehrer, Rod Jensen, John Craft, Steven Forney, Herb Kelsey, Bill Ramaley, Russ Sperry (El Russo Loco), Josh McNeal, John West, Jim Armstrong, Bob Bergstrom, Greg Scholl, Blake Forbes Doug van Veelen and Mark Fuller.