Illinois Railway Museum Blog

Originally Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe 841, this Alco RSD-15 was moved into the diesel shop early last year for some mechanical work. Progress over the summer was very slow due to many other ongoing projects and was mainly limited to cleanup of the cab, nose, and engine room. More recently, however, we have made a lot of progress. First, a little bit of history: Several years ago, the years start to run together so I'm guessing in 2000, we attempted to turn over the 16 cylinder engine for the first time at IRM and found that it was seized. We had no idea how good or bad it was, we knew that barring, nor trying to turn it over with its own starters would not work, it was certainly solid state. The stack was uncovered when we inspected and picked the unit back in 1995 in Green Bay, but all of the units there did not have covers, just a bit of tape and wire where the plastic covers used to be before the sun's UV had gotten to them.  We figured it was a few years of rainwater and snow getting into the stack and going through the turbo into the engine. A few years later from first trying to turn it, we had started to poor some Kroil (the oil that creeps) into all of the cylinders by taking the relief plugs out and at first using a finger pump oil can, and later using a pressurized garden sprayer. This was done by the gallons a couple times a year over the span of a few years.

Moving on to the most recent work... On Tuesday night, Jeron G, Colton V, and myself finished a little more cleanup around the engine to prevent dirt, racoon crap, and paint chips from getting into the engine when we had covers open. Over the past couple of weeks, or maybe its been months...the time does start to run together...we've been talking about how to go about freeing up the engine and many different ways to do it. What we ended up with on Thursday and Friday nights was Charlie S and I making some adapters so that we could take a quick connect air fitting to a 1/2" pipe and kinda force it to thread into the plugs of the relief holes in the heads. We went through each cylinder and checked the position of the rods to pick a few cylinders that would give the most leverage on the crankshaft by pumping compressed air into the cylinders using the pistons to turn the crankshaft.  We noted which ones would give us the correct rotation by air pressure and by leverage with a jack or porto-power in its given position. By Friday night, we had emptied 8 cans of PB spray into the 16 cylinders and had all the adapters in place, hoses all setup and tested. On a few cylinders we had to pull the rocker arms to close the valves. We called it a night at about 4am.

Saturday afternoon Charlie started to take off the air intake box from the front of the turbo. There isn't much room in this area of the loco, air, oil and water pipes are everywhere, and this box is what connects the intake filters to the turbo, and the intake filters have their own mount which is all blocked by other stuff, not an easy task.  We figured the turbo was probably stuck too, and that was the easiest way to get to it.  Meanwhile I started to get some 12 ton bottle jacks ready, we charged up the 4 cylinders we picked from the night before with air. After some playing around I found best way to wedge the bottle jacks was between the edge of the crankcase inspection holes against the 3/4" steel, and the bottom center of the rod bearing cap. A little bit of pumping on the jack, just to the point of almost needing two hands on the handle, there was a slight woosh of air and the jack crashed down on the screen in the crankcase. It actually moved, just a few degrees, but it actually moved. The next two hours was spent doing the same thing, moving a couple bottle jacks between a few holes since you could only turn it about 20-25 degrees per hole given the reach of the jack. We removed air from the cylinders as they got to the point where it would work against us. When we made it about 230 degrees around, we put air back on two cylinders, it took a couple pumps with the jack before the air pushed it around on it own nearly 100 degrees to almost BDC on those pistons.

A few others had arrived by this time including Warren L, Eric Z, Jim W, and Colton V. They dragged over the long heavy jumper cables and hooked them up between the 33C on the next track and the 2407.  We turned the proper switches on, hit the start button, and watched the start contactors arc and bounce.  The next step was to clean up the tips, on the second try, we hit the start button, and watched the lights go dim on the 33.  The batteries weren't there enough anymore to get that big Alco engine to turn. After pondering what other options we had being all the way deep into the shop, not near any other locos with batteries, we checked the voltage on the big welder next to us and decided that may do the trick.  The guys dragged over the other set of jumper cables and we wired that up along with the batteries in the 33C.  The third try, we hit the start button, and heard the tone of the welder change, and that was about it. We only had the welder set at about 200 amps, so we turned it up to about 375 and gave it another try. We hit the start button, and the 16 cylinder engine started to turn slowly, picking up a little momentum after the first couple turns. After begin seized for more than 15 years, the Alligator was actually cranking itself over.

After that happiness and excitement, we turned our attention to a couple of stuck valves, freed those up, and then to the stuck turbo. Eric and Charlie dove into that, getting access to both ends and getting rust and debris cleaned out and then getting some penetrating oil between the blades and housing.  We called it a night before 10:00pm for once to get dinner and a good night sleep for a good start time the next morning.

The goal for Sunday was to get the turbo freed and get the cooling system put back together and get it watered.  There were a few large couplings that had been disconnected in the GB&W days. Roger B, Scott N, Pete P, and Warren L started working on those while Eric Z started digging into the turbo. Kyle M and myself cleaned all the screens in the oil pan and put the plugs back in the heads. Jeron G joined us right after lunch. Jim W set us up with the water hoses and we started filling with water. Overall it went pretty well, however, there were a few leaks that have to be dealt with, one coupling that goes into the oil cooler will need to be cleaned and reseated, a pipe on the air compressor was leaking where it slipped out of the compression fitting, several seals on the compressor, engine heads, and water manifold over the engine will need work. They are old and dry and just need to be replaced, and will be dealt with over the coming weeks. The turbo on the other hand is fighting us every step of the way. The exhaust inlet end was reassembled and left with penetrating oil to soak in between the blades and body, we'll come back to that another day.

The progress that was made by everyone this weekend was great, far beyond where I thought we would be by the end of the weekend, I can't thank you all enough for the effort that you all put in. Several huge steps were completed with getting the engine to turn and having it hold water.  It is very possible that the 2407 may be part of the operating fleet by the end of the year, perhaps sooner depending on what it takes to resolve the turbo issue. We also need to thoroughly inspect the remainder of the electrical system, replace all the cab glass, as well as complete some other items, donations would certainly be welcomed to assist in the costs of these items.