Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Tuesday nights work on the Green Bay and Western 2407 was to fix more leaks on some of the water pipes. Jeron Glander, Dave Fullarton, and myself arrived about 6:30pm and spent about four hours working on it. We started in the cramped quarters of the radiator room, using the porto-power to move one of the main water pipes around, bending a mounting bracket straight again and getting 3 main points of the pipe to line up properly. After a lot of adjusting, the sleeve fit perfectly. Then Jeron and Dave wire wheeled the surfaces of the pipe where the rubber gaskets of the coupling will seal and then reassembled the coupling and tightened up all the clamps.

refitted coupling

replaced pipe

After that I removed a small 1/2 x 8 inch pipe that was cracked, removed the reducing bushing that had the broken portion of the pipe stuck in it, removed the broken portion and replaced with a new pipe. Naturally, it has to be in one of the worst spots to reach, between the oil cooler and main water pipe, blocked by the drive shaft and eddy current clutch and guards, but we were able to squeeze in there and get it done.

Dave did some vacuuming of some debris on the floor before he and Jeron moved on to the engine to start taking off some water elbows between the head and block. There are a number of gaskets on the engine and air compressor that are dried and split and just need to be replaced.

I have created a photo gallery of the mechanical work as it progresses. There are also a few photos of the cab and the fogged and bad windows that need to be replaced. These will all have to be replaced with FRA glazing, donations to the RSD15 would be greatly appreciated and will assist in the costs of the restoration.

a bad gasket