Day After Day

I was able to spend two days out at the Museum this week, and a lot of work got done. More painting on the south side of the 36, including the red striping. This side is now about 90% done. In a few weeks, we should be able to turn the car around so we can start stripping the other side once the weather cools down.

Much of the time was spent sanding down and repainting windows in the shop, where it's much more comfortable. I sanded three down to bare wood, and there were already two ready to paint. One needs some new molding strips, so four got painted with a first coat of white primer on both sides. I had to set a couple of them on top of the big pine posts that are being made for interior framing of the Russell plow -- I should have taken a picture of them. But I was careful not to get any fresh paint on the posts. If Bob wants paint on his snow plow parts, he can pay for it himself!

Al, meanwhile, was working on a side door, as seen earlier. The drop sash had a problem: evidently the screws holding the latch pulled out, so somebody drilled through the wood and attached the latch with nuts and bolts. That's kind of bogus. I drilled out the holes to 1/2", and will be filling them with hardwood dowels I got from Tim. That will be a good project to finish at home.

And I looked some more at the 36's compressor. The commutator is badly worn, would need slotting, and is shorted to ground. Ugh. I removed a cover plate for the armature bearing, hoping the shaft would have something I could put a wrench on, but it doesn't. It's not obvious in this picture, but there's a brass expansion ring of some sort that came loose and is dangling inside the bearing case. That's not good, but I couldn't get it out. It appears that this compressor has had a hard life, and probably deserves retirement. So the "Now Hiring" sign is out.

And there were various miscellaneous tasks, not worth photographing. But let's see what others are doing.

On Thursday, Rod fabricated a new resistor box for the potential relay on the 1797. Here we see before and after.

Frank Sirinek has started work towards getting the 63 operational. The electrical system was inspected today, and rumor has it that it looks very good; the contactors are like new. They're hoping to get it operational relatively soon. The body will probably need some body and fender work at some point.

Finally, here's Tim Peters spray painting the ceiling and miscellaneous parts inside the 1797. You'll notice that he's careful to have all the right protective gear and adequate ventilation. (I'm standing right next to a large fan turning the car into a wind tunnel. So we get a free demonstration of Bernoulli's principle!)