We'd like to extend a huge THANK YOU to our good friend Paul Krot, who has arranged with a specialty tire shop out in Oregon to replace the badly deteriorated solid-rubber tires on our Chicago Surface Lines air compressor wagon, AX545. Paul is also handling some important work that's required as part of this process, such as sand-blasting the tread surfaces. This work was also made possible by donations from viewers like you through contributions to the "RCAR" Electric Car Department fund - thank you to everyone who donated! With that, let's hand the mike over to Paul for the latest on the wheels.
I stopped by the tire shop twice last week, on Monday to be certain the wheels made it like the tracking information indicated and Friday to see Dave in the back room to see how things were progressing along.
These two pictures, from Monday, show two of the wheels fitted up on his lathes for him to check set-up. So far, so good.
I spent about an hour with him Friday afternoon discussing the project and set up. He’s impressed that these wheels have only about .0625 of runout in them. The pics from Friday shows his finalized holding fixture. He was going to work on making up the side plates next that will be necessary to use with the application machine. Dave is planning on doing a single wheel first to see how everything works out before tackling the other three.
When he’s ready to give up the first wheel, I’m going to take it to get the tread surface sandblasted here locally. It’s necessary to give the surface the proper tooth for the new rubber to adhere too.
We’re still a ways off from any rubber being applied but are certain now the pieces can be made to work.
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