Ten Wheeler Time!


E

Espeefan

Well-Known Member
Time to paint that ten wheeler guys! Well...sort of. I'm going to do a little bait & switch on you. It's still going to be a Ten Wheeler, just not that little one. I found another bargain over at Brass Trains. There are a few left in case you're curious! There was a SP T-31 4-6-0 for sale with "running issues". Now this can mean just about anything. It can be something as simple as a tender truck reversed, or a broken neoprene coupling between the motor & gearbox, or it can be something more fun. You pays your money and you takes your chances. I wanted it, it's a good looking model. Nice ones usually start in the high two hundreds to mid threes. They wanted $185. I though it over for a couple of days and pulled the trigger. It showed up today and, well, you know, I had to find out what "running issues" meant. Not a sound when power was applied, so off came the boiler. Wiring was good, so off came the motor. It was frozen solid. No big deal, its an open framer and is going away no matter what anyhow. A fresh motor temporarily mounted, and still no movement. Gearbox comes off. Gearbox frozen solid! I happen to have a stash of KTM gearboxes, the factory replacement for what's in this model. Don't ever let anyone tell you it doesn't pay to be a pack rat! But then you all know that, don't you? Of course since I'm a cheap packrat, I didn't want to chuck this gearbox without attempting a fix. I opened it up, and it was totally dry. Not even that dried up old grease you usually see in these. The parts bag was in the box, still sealed. The boiler weight was still sealed in its factory bag with the screw, so this thing had never been run, or at least it was test run only. It has spent most if its existence in the box, hence these problems. I ended up soaking it in some oil, prying the stuck bearing off the shaft and polishing it, and the worm shaft. That did the trick. The mechanism is very smooth, no binds, and the frame design will make re-motoring a snap. Bottom line is I already have this thing stripped down far enough that it doesn't make sense to put it back together, so I'm going to proceed from here. I have a missing tender step (that I knew about) so I'll have to make one, and we'll do the usual added details, bell rope, whistle rod, lagging clamps, and anything else I come across. Have a look:
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I've been watching FeePay lately, and I've noticed brass, "factory" painted and in running condition, going for less than $200.
Diesels seem to be going for a hundred or so, depending. I know some are better than others, other than that, I know enough to be dangerous--to my wallet, anyway.
 
Here's where we stand this evening, and I'm posting these just so you can see how simple these mechanisms really are. To get the boiler off, you remove the two small screws at the rear of the engine below the motor (second photo down in the first post). looking at the bottom of the engine (third photo down above), you remove that nut under the lead truck. It comes off (on some models it's a screw). The truck comes off, and you remove the little spring and washer. Under that there is a hex head fastener. Remove that and the boiler lifts right off. Sometimes the nut or the screw will be tight enough that the whole stud assembly comes off lead truck and all (like happened this time :) ) The chassis shown below has the motor and gearbox removed. One screw holds the motor in, and one wire is soldered to the drawbar connection. The motor is grounded to the frame. Two little screws hold the gearbox together. Remove those and the gearbox lifts off, and you’re looking at this. The drivers are sprung on this model, unlike the little T-28 we saw last time. This is a later release. You can see the firebox sides are soldered to the frame which makes masking for smokebox gray really easy. The firebox sides make a natural cradle as well, so I don't even have to fabricate a motor mount. I could probably do this one over a weekend if I wanted, and that might happen, but no hurry!
I also took the boiler to the blasting booth and got rid of that ugly tarnish/stain on the rear of the cab & cab roof.

From here we're about 10 minutes from totally stripped down.
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wheeler1963 said:
Alan, you said it was pretty much new. What causes that corrosion on the back of the cab??
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Well "New" is relative Jerome :) It was imported in 1972, so it's 47 years old. It's never been run that I can tell, so it's what they call on e-Bay "New Old Stock". There is little to no run time on the mechanism. Lots of these models got bought, opened, looked at, re-boxed, and tucked in a closet for "that layout I'm going to build some day". I've got quite a few models in my collection that were acquired in this condition.

Brass will corrode over time, depending on how it's stored, so it could be that it was stored in a humid environment. I think someone got careless with flux, or didn't properly clean it after the acid bath. Acid based fluxes were used when soldering these things together. I use acid based liquid flux on repairs, and I wash the pieces when I'm done. If you don't they stay on the metal and will cause corrosion, and if they are painted over without proper surface preparation they will cause failure of the coating. It came right off in the blasting booth with what we call in the fabrication industry a "brushoff blast". Over on one of the other threads where I showed the UP Northern and the SP 0-6-0 you can see another example of this on that Northern's tender. Of all of the tools I have (I have tools that fix tools :) ) the blasting booth and resistance soldering gear are the most valuable when it comes to these restorations. You don't use them every day, but when you need them, there is no substitute. Before I had a blasting booth I used the little el-cheapo Paasche air eraser and the Badger blaster. You can't recycle the media with those, at least not very efficiently but they got me over the hump for many years. A good resistance soldering outfit will cost you about what a Genesis steamer or a pair of sound equipped Genesis diesels will, and you'll never regret spending the money.
 
Alan, I remember the tender, the top was half covered in that stain. This actually looked like rust to me. Looking forward to seeing it cleaned up. Please make sure we get a picture of the back of the cab again, after you clean it up. ;)
 
It will go through the booth again and the ultrasonic cleaner prior to painting, but I wanted to see how bad it was. Actual corrosion on brass is green. You can see a little green on the edge of the cab roof in the first post. If untreated this will eventually cause pitting which is harder to remove.
 
In an upcoming thread I'm going to be doing a drive conversion on the little 0-6-0, from the "Tyco drive" to a more modern gearbox and can motor
 
Really enjoying your restorations; a great refresher course to me as I have forgot soooo muchhhh!

Now-- If you could just tell me how I built my own power pack long ago? I had a 110v powerstat about 4 inches in dia with a rectifier and transformer - pulse power and direction switches and c/b.
For the life of me, I can't remember how all these parts were assembled. The powerstat was like a large rheostat and gave excellent speed control.
 
Sirfoldalot said:
Really enjoying your restorations; a great refresher course to me as I have forgot soooo muchhhh!

Now-- If you could just tell me how I built my own power pack long ago? I had a 110v powerstat about 4 inches in dia with a rectifier and transformer - pulse power and direction switches and c/b.
For the life of me, I can't remember how all these parts were assembled. The powerstat was like a large rheostat and gave excellent speed control.
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Sorry Sherrel, can’t help you there. The last Power pack I acquired was by transmutation. I handed an Alchemist several pieces of paper with dead presidents pictures on them. He placed the paper in a box, a bell rang and my power pack appeared. Darndest thing!
 
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Before I do anything else, I go over the model and make any necessary repairs. That missing tender step (first post last photo) had to be replaced. This thing is a little casting, so I checked the parts collection. I had nothing like it, though I had just about very other kind of tender step you can imagine. Murphy's laws of modeling, right? I did have some brass flat bar though, and I used my dial calipers to measure, and I made one. The first was too big, the second wasn't perfect, but it'll do. Once it's black the slight difference will not be terribly noticeable. Needle nose pliers and a soldering iron, eye and hand. Now to see if there's any loose parts or other issues!
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