Diesel Department

Earlier in the week on Monday morning, Dave Diamond drove the wheelset that was removed from 6847 along with the new motor to a shop just outside of Chicago. They pressed off the wheels and gear, machined the bearing surfaces on the axle, and pressed the gear and wheels back onto the axle and reassembled the combo with new support bearings. Initially there was over .350" of lateral between the old motor and wheels, which is out of tolerance. After the machining and pressing the gear into the correct place and after reassembly with the new motor and bearings, the lateral was .079" where it should be. Dave Diamond helped us out again and picked up the combo on Wednesday morning and unloaded it in the steam shop under the overhead crane.

Rebuilt combo.

Saturday morning, Roger Broms, Dan Currens and myself arrived and started to do some other prep work including replacing a broken bolt on the nose pack, and then compressing it to be reinstalled once the motor is back in the truck. The nose pack is basically a rubber pad sandwiched between two thick bars of steel, which supports the nose end of the motor against the truck frame. We also mounted the blower duct and roller bearing boxes and then moved the motor to the drop table.

6847 positioned over the drop table.

The Steam Department volunteers helped us out again as well by getting the drop table ready to go and helping get some tools and supplies, as well as operating the crane to stage the combo on the drop table for the installation. The 8537 was used to push the 6847 onto the drop table, centering the #5 axle over the table.  The position of the pedestals was marked on the table, and then the table was lowered a bit and moved to the west side of the pit. The centerline for the wheels were marked and then the combo was placed with the nose of the motor blocked up.

Setting the combo on the table.

The table was lowered and moved back to the east side of the pit under the loco, and raised back up stopping occasionally to check clearances and to line up the roller boxes with the pedestals.  We had to push the firemans side wheel over just a bit with a bottle jack to get it to line up exactly in the pedestals, then raised up some more.  Eventually the motor nose supports lined up with those on the truck frame and we slid in the support pack and pinned it in, lowered a bit to remove the blocking under the motor, and then continued to raise the table until the springs seated properly over the roller boxes.  The table was clamped back into place and the loco was moved back into the shop.

Checking the alignment as the table is raised.

We then put the pedestal cross bars back on, remounted the brake shoes and shock absorbers, released the bolts holding tension on the rubber nose pack, hooked up the traction motor leads and inspected a few other items. After all that, we moved the loco back outside and Jim West helped move the 428 and Shay back into the steam shop.

There is a gallery setup with some random photos during the process of changing the combo, http://www.irm.org/gallery/diesel-november2010, they are mostly in order from the prep work, to removing the wheelset and old motor, to installing the new motor and wheelset. Thanks to everyone that helped during the entire process.  Next year when the weather is warmer, we'll test everything out operationally and CNW 6847 will be back in service again.

The main goal for the afternoon was to get the wheelset, traction motor and other accessories from the 6847 loaded onto the truck and tied down so they could be taken to a machine shop near Chicago. Kevin Hennessy and I loaded the wheelset, TM and a pallet with the gear cases and a box with the support bearings. Kyle Merkel and I tied everything down with chains and ratchet binders. Rod Turner moved the CE4 a bit further into barn 6 so we could park the truck inside overnight in case it rained.  Dave Diamond drove the parts towards the city early Monday morning. With some luck, we should be able to pick up a fully assembled combo on Wednesday morning and reinstall on Saturday.

Kyle and I then moved into the shop and started to disassemble the front lower pilot of CB&Q 9255 as it had been bent up a little bit from a derailment a while ago.  We unbolted the bottom plate and then the firemans side supports. Steve Lewkowycz joined Kyle to complete the engineers side. All the parts were moved to the back of the shop ready to be straightened out. While they were there, they drained the loco for the winter as this weeks weather forecast is calling for below freezing temperatures for several nights in a row.

Dan Mulvihill and Bob Sundelin were testing some spot welded wires/pins that will be used to hold down the insulation on the M-35 above the windows. It was a short day, but a productive one.

On Saturday morning, Roger Broms and I arrived about 8:30am and started getting some parts and tools ready to remove the #5 motor and wheel combo. We started the 8537, the US Army 45 tonner, which would be used later to move the 6847 over the drop table. Roger gathered some parts while I moved the new motor over to the steam shop under their new overhead crane. Meanwhile, Nigel and Ralph, and some others were removing the roof from the drop table, and getting the safety fence setup along with other some other items around the table. Jeff Calendine ran the forklift to remove two freight car trucks that were on the lead south of the table and in the way. The 6847 was facing south so we could close the railroad doors behind the shop to keep the heat in the shop.

Roger Broms and Bob Milhaupt drilled the last holes in the wheel clamps we made the night before so we could place a clevis on them to attach a chain from there. Roger Bradshaw began prepping the new motor, taking off the support bearing caps and cleaning everything up. Scott Nauer and I removed the last pedestal cross bar and the bracket that holds the traction motor nose pack pins in place. We then moved the 8537 to the steam shop and began to shove the 6847 over the table, lining up the #5 axle in the middle of the table.  We tied everything down and moved the 8537 back into the shop out of the way.

We blocked up the nose end of the motor. One of the bolts on the rubber pack was broken so we couldn't compress it to remove it easily, so we just let the motor tilt more and more, added blocking as we lowered until the rubber pack was free to be removed. We then lowered the combo the rest of the way, slid over the table and raised it back up to let the Bay City crane lift the combo off the table to where the forklift could reach under it. Jeff moved the combo over to the shop near the new motor.

After draining the oil from the support bearings, removing the bearing wick assemblies, and removing the gear cases, we setup both motors on their ends. This way we could eventually lift the wheel off the bad motor, rotate 180 degrees, and onto the new motor. After setting the combo on its end, we could see there was a very large gap for the lateral motion between the motor and axle, well over a 1/4" gap on the comm end of the combo. We started tearing down the support bearing caps and pulled the top bearing shells out. We could immediately see excessive wear on one end of the axle where the flange end of the support bearing meets the wheel. The gear end looks like the gear had been moved or hammered over by almost a 1/8" as it wasn't lining up how it is supposed to be with the marks on the axle.  The bearing shells were worn in certain spots and galling in other spots. At this point we figured there was no way to complete the job today and do it right.

Roger said if we could get the wheels, new motor and a few of the other required parts to his shop on Monday, they would press the gear into the right spot, machine the axle bearing surfaces and reassemble the combo with new bearings. Hopefully we will have the complete combo back by Wednesday before the holiday so it can be reinstalled Saturday. We started cleaning everything up, moving the motors back to the diesel shop inside on pallets. We removed the roller bearing boxes from the axle and placed those along with everything else on pallets. We dragged the 6847 back into the south end of the steam shop and put the 8537 away.

It'll be an extra week that we hadn't planned on, at least the job will be done right and everything will be back together with the proper limits and good bearings. Tentatively we are planning on installing the combo this coming Saturday if everything works out and there are people available on the holiday weekend. Sorry there are no pictures with this update, there were a number of people taking them, but most of them left before we were done so I couldn't ask to use them here.