During the 2 years we were running the #3 when 19 was down, Paul and I put in a number of evening sessions tightening bolts. It was amazing how many bolts here and there on the trucks that would work loose or even fall out and the old girl would keep right on going without anything actually going to pieces till we could deal with them. The fire patrol would occasionally pick up a greasey nut or bolt on the ROW that looked like something off of 3 and then we'd start looking to see where it came from in the evening. It can take a lot of abuse and keep on going. Scott says in a lot of places it breaks less bolts if they aren't run up too tight. The pinion cap bolts as I said are a bitch. Originally they had oversize square heads with the bolt installed from the underside of the truck with the nuts on top. Over the years some of the bolts have been replaced with hex heads or smaller square heads. The original square heads were kept from turning on the uderside by a boss in the casting, but the hex heads and some of the square heads will turn by the boss, so it takes someone underneath and someone on top of the truck to tighten them. The top is about the oiliest greasiest location you can imagine. The guy laying in the pit has it easy. Scott got things put in good shape a couple winters back on the rear truck, but the front truck needs to be pulled out at some probably distant future point and gone over and all the bolts re-equiped with castle nuts and cotters or nylock nuts.
On the good side, #3's throttle is easier to work than the 19's. The injectors nearly always work well. Once you learn a couple tricks about what to do if they overheat which is farily rare as long as the stem packings are tight, even that isn't much of a problem.
Enough geared engine trivia and back to the regularly sched. rod eng. and Colorado NG programming.
