April 2016 - Siding material arrived

We had three work sessions in April, only one on a Saturday.  The other two were Thursdays where the following Saturdays were cancelled because of weather.  April in Colorado!

We were able to borrow a heater for the shelter which takes some of the chill off.  Thanks, Ron, for the repairs.

At some time in the past the south inner sill at the west end of the car had a new piece of sill spliced in.  The splice is just to the right of center in this picture.  There is an overlap of the old and new pieces extending to the right under the plywood.  Several bolts were placed through the splice that were removed when we installed the angle steel some time ago.  Now to replaced the bolts we must drill holes through the steel.

 In this photo John and Bob are doing just that.

Additional bolts also had to be installed in the inner sills and bolsters.  Don is on top doing the holding and  Ron below.  An ongoing project this month also was to tighten all the nuts on the bolts in the floor framing prior to installing the underside sheathing, the next project.

We picked up the material for the siding on the car.  It is tongue and groove like what was removed.

 

The siding was cut to length at the worksite, and taken to Don's garage where he and Jim primed it.  This photo shows Jim and the finished product.

The lower end had to be beveled to fit the slope of the window sill.

This photo shows a panel that has been installed temporarily. The upper end fits into a slot in the letter board and the lower rests on the window sill.

This photo shows a part of the piece of wood that covered the end of the car above and next to the upper part of the door.  It was one piece that extended across the top of the door with a mirror image of this at the other end.  As you can see it was well secured with screws that were buried into the wood.

Craig has been busy duplicating this piece, and has elected to do it in three parts.  The curve of the roof varies across the width of the car which made fitting more difficult.  Here the two end pieces are held in place with clamps.  The metal is showing through over the door.

In this photo Craig is fitting the center piece of wood over the door.  Eventually these will be bolted through to hold them in place.

Just a little adjustment on the belt sander.

The back side was drilled to accommodate the heads of the bolts holding the steel plates in place.

This is the finished product.  A second (almost) identical piece is behind.

More drilling to fasten the wood in place.  Bill K. is reaching high overhead.

Ron is grinding off one of the bolts holding the steel as the threads are too short to tightly secure the plate to the framing.  They will be replaced.

Another project this month was installing the truss rod brackets on the needle beams.  Marshall reproduced these from photos of a similar car.  (See photo in February 2016 posting.)

The first thing was to plug and  fill the holes from the previous brackets.  Here Y. T. is tapping in a wooden plug.














Then the bracket posts were mounted on each end of the two needle beams.  Bob is tightening the bolts holding the post.











Then the bracing arm goes on and is lag bolted into the needle beam.  The paint has been removed from both pieces where they attach to each other prior to welding them together.

The next project was continuing the assembly of the end platforms.  This photo taken before the disassembly shows the tie rods holding the bracing and end pieces in place.  Note that the closest rod is bent down to pass through the bracing at the middle.  The exit hole in the end sill is higher than the hole in the platform brace.

We borrowed the rod bender again from the Trolley Museum, consisting of a frame and hydraulic jack to put two bends in four rods.  The downward bend on one of the east end rods is being done here.  The west end ones were done previously.  Bob is exercising his left arm on the jack in this photo while John has positioned the rod in the saddle.

The rod has been bent sufficiently and the frame will be removed.

To put the upward bend in the rods the jack was removed and a portable hydraulic device was used as the jack would not work in the inverted position.  Here John and Don are working on a rod on the west end of the car.  Don has his left hand on the pump while John positions the hydraulic cylinder in the frame.

The end result, a double bend.

Tom then cut the rods to the proper length and beveled the end in preparation for threading.

Bob is using a hand threader in tight quarters.

It looks like we are ready to put the bracing piece and end piece back in place.

The bracing piece is installed and secure.  The bend in the rod is in the upper right corner of the photo.




Thanks again to Tom Simco for sharing photos.