June 2016 - Under the car

After a busy summer I am back at the blog.  June was a good month for work on 470 with two work sessions, but work sessions on the railroad in Chama and Antonito later in the summer meant less time for Colorado Springs.

One accomplishment was to place lock nuts on the bolts (of which there are many) on the underside of the car.  This is a tedious task but very important to prevent loosening as the car shakes, rattles, and rolls along the track.  Here Bill and Ron are working along one of the bolsters.

This photo shows a closeup of  two bolts with the flat lock nuts in place.

John Weiss stopped by with a model in wood of the pivot plates that go between the car and the trucks.  They allow the the trucks to rotate as the car travels around curves.  Ultimately these will be made out of steel.

Here John (on the right) is checking the fit of the model.  Note the block between the inner sills with a hole for the center pin.

Marshall and Mary Jane Smith came to help, shown here with Glen Hall.  Marshall helped with the welding of the body truss rod saddles.  Also in this photo is a roll of the water barrier to be placed under the car prior to installation of the sheathing.

 In this photo John is positioning the saddle on the post, held in place with wood blocks.

Ready to weld.

Here Marshall is welding one of four posts and saddles.

Thanks, Marshall.

The last project for June was to start installing the moisture barrier under the car.  Those of us with old necks and shoulders did the cutting of the sheets, in this case Marshall, John, and Tom.

The "boys" were under the car doing the measuring, fitting, and nailing, here Bill K. and Bob.  As you can see the quarters were tight and there was a lot of framing, etc. to work around.

Hammering upside down is always fun.

Nice job, guys.

May 2016 - End platforms, siding, etc.

May was a busy month, and with the added Thursday sessions good progress was made.  The assembly of the end platforms was completed and the installation of siding is well underway.

The tie rods are in place and bent to fit through the intermediate spacer and platform end sill.

John (on the left) and Don are lifting the spacer into place.  Grooves have been cut in it to allow the rods to pass through that will attach to the end sill.  This photo also shows how the pieces are notched and mortised to fit together.

This is a view from above showing the spacer in place with a rod through it.  The end of the rod has been threaded and is ready for a washer and nut.  Two of the six rods end in the spacer with the other four ending in the end sill.

Don and Ron are drilling a hole in the end sill for the rod to pass through.  The sill was put in place and marked for drilling, then taken down to drill the hole.

The inner end of the outside rods are hooked on to the end sill of the car and held in place with lag bolts.  Don is under the car tightening the lag.

The end sill was replaced after drilling.  John and Ron are providing the lifting power.

The last step was placing the small spacer board over the sill and tightening the nuts with standoff washers.  The intermediate spacer can be seen at the lower right of the picture bolted in place.

Now the platform end sill is secured with the four tie rods, fitted with standoff washers, nuts and lock nuts.

Concurrently with the platform assembly Craig and others were applying the siding boards to the car.  Here he and Bill L. are working on the south side.  An air nailer helps speed the process.

Good job, guys.  Notice how the upper ends of the boards fit into a groove in the letterboard and the  lower ends are angled to fit the slope of the window sill.

This is the view from the inside of the car.  Glue blocks have been placed against the siding and framing as were present originally.

Here Bob is putting up more glue blocks in the side wall at the end of the car.

Craig is bolting the exterior wood piece over and around the door into place.  A previous  post showed how this was put together.

This photo shows it finished, complete with the trim piece across the top between the roof and the end piece.

This photo shows the trim pieces on the ceiling of the platform.  A few of the ceiling boards also had to be replaced along the far edge..

Originally there were rectangular blocks of wood inserted in the framing to provide stiffness to the walls of the car.  In this photo Bob is replacing one of these with a new one.

Ron glued blocks of wood to the framing at the end of the car to be able to fasten the siding securely.  The steel supports will have to be mortised into the siding.  More on this later.

 The above two photos shows Ron drilling through the steel to place a bolt through it and into the framing to hold it from bending outward.  One of the blocks for the siding can be seen behind the steel in the photo on the right.

Finally this month asymmetrical washers were obtained and installed on the bolster.  Because of the slope of the lower part of the bolster a flat washer could not be used.  Note also the lock nut in place.  All of the bolts through the floor framing were tightened and lock nuts installed.

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.