Thursday, March 15, 2012

Full House

It was nice and warm today, so there was a lot going on. Among other things, I worked on the grids under car 36 for a while. There are several loose connections, where the clamps were unbolted at Cleveland, and the bolts are rusty. So that's another minor annoyance. I may have to wait until it's over the pit. There are also some melted grid segments, all in section R1, which indicates the car was being operated on the first point for long periods. But that's what typically happens when you buy a used car that's no longer under warranty. And the manufacturer went out of business 95 years ago.

Then I installed the final contactor in box #1, as seen here. This one won't actually work until two others are installed, but it's nice to have the box finished. There's a lot of heavy lifting, so I've decided one a day is enough. It gets slightly easier with practice, though. And it's always nice to twist the controller and hear the thunks under the car as the contacts close.

I went out to check on the 321, and brought back a few items. There were two J governors stored there, and I thought I would bring them back for testing. We need one for the 36; the original governor was replaced with a modern design at Cleveland. It then flashed over and started a small fire, which was quickly put out. Here's a picture of one of them, which seems to work OK, so it's going to be installed after I apply some more Glyptal inside the cover. And just for today, I will resist the temptation to joke about governors.

And I decided to bring back my rolling tool chest from the 321, where it wasn't doing me any good. I should take some pictures of the new road that has been extended out to yards 13 and 14. It's very convenient.





And Tim Peters continues his yeoman work on the 1797 single-handed. Literally. Here we see him sanding down the side of the car, and later spraying doors in the shop. We're all hoping his left arm is healing properly. Then, presumably, he could do twice as much!

2 comments:

David Church said...

Wow.. lots of hard work! I have a silly question.. What does the governor do on these cars?

Frank Hicks said...

The governor controls when the air compressor turns on and off, based on air pressure on the system.