Change for the Better - Updated

 Today we accomplished an important change for the better: replacing the 36's defective compressor with one that will work.  Once some connections are made, this will be our oldest operating car.

In the morning, I pulled the three blue cars over to the pit lead.  Frank finished needle-chipping one side sill, with a little help from his father.  It's really an oppressive task if you ask me.

 By the way, here are some pictures of a partially-disassembled compressor (D3-F, as it happens).  On the left, the armature has been removed, and you can see the lower field coil at the bottom of the motor case.  The end plate includes the armature bearing.

On the other side, we see the large gear that drives the crankshaft, with the cover removed.  To its left would be the pinion on the armature shaft. 

Replacing the compressor on the 36 was not an easy task, but it went better than I had feared.  Joel Ahrendt drove the big forklift and did most of the skilled labor.   I was too busy to take any pictures of the process, unfortunately.  

Anyway, once it was more or less done, it looks like this -- not a lot different, but this pump will actually produce compressed air for the car's brakes.   You may notice that in order to move the compressor in and out, we had to drop the truss rod on this side. 

Besides Joel, Frank and I were helped by several others on this project, including Mark Gellman, Greg Kepka, and a couple of newer members whose names I should have recorded but didn't.   IRM is fortunate to attract new members all the time, including some younger people.  That really bodes well for the future.

Frank adds...

I was able to get a couple of photos during the air compressor transfer.  At right, my father unbolts the compressor cradle holding the old compressor from the car.  To the left of his elbow you can see the fork of the forklift holding up the cradle.


And at left Joel operates the forklift to carry the old compressor away from the car to swap out.

There were various other people working on projects at the museum, as usual.  Tim was working on the 24, a whole crew of people were out on the line car repairing the overhead, and a recent acquisition was also receiving attention.  Frank, Mike, Steve and Bill were all hard at work on New Jersey Transit 4, our recently-acquired PCC.  The current goal is to get it repainted and make repairs necessary to put it into service; at some point, when funding becomes available, the eventual goal is to backdate it to as-built Minneapolis condition.  Below, Steve and Bill are shown working on getting the car's M-G set functioning.