Re: # 19

Dan, Scott (our CMO) was relating Sunday that Floyd Carpenter who was master mechanic for the SVRy in the old days, told him the general rule for side rods was 1/32 clearance (.030). This is of course a lot more clearance than you would give a bearing on a normal rotating shaft, but in the case of side rods has to have a least this much clearance to avoid binding as the driving box and axle move up and down due to rough track as well as to avoid binding due to lateral motion of the axle/wheel set in the curves.
More mechanical trivia from Scott: the side rod brasses are machined 3/64 over the journal diamameter (.045) and machined 1/64 (.015) over the bore in the side rods so when they are pressed in, the bore of the brass will be compressed to 1/32 or about .030. I wonder how much these specs change as you go to much larger brasses in say a Challenger or something much smaller like Eureka?