Completing the drive

January 07, 2006

I took a few days off, did some walking (30 km) and visited a museum and gathered my courage to continue on the Shay.

First I still had some work to do on the trucks. Sanding the gears on the drive axles proved to be wise. There was still some binding in the trucks so I worked on them until they ran smoothly. Motto: do as much as you have to, but as little as you can!

The gear on the axle is easily reached by pulling off the insuolated wheel.

There is always a lot of fuzz about pullers and readjustments of wheels. Don't bother, just do it.

Then it was time for stationary trials. Carefully of course, I didn't want to spoil another gearbox!!

First trials with all three trucks running

By this time I had to find a solution for a better coupling between engine and tender. Jeff replaces the engine-to-tender drawbar because it has a tendency for a spontaneous mid ride disassembly. I had to find a simple solution because I didn't have the necessary screws available at the time. I came up with the idea as a temporary solution, but it proved so well that I decided to keep it that way. I drilled a 0,7 mm hole in the centre of the pin on the drawbar. I put 0,5 mm brass wire through the hole and bent it 90 degrees on both sides. I cut off excess material leaving the top part long enough to reach about 2 mm over the edge of the pick up hole on the engine frame. I does not uncouple during the ride, yet with some careful twisting the tender may still be uncoupled if desired. This semi permanent coupling leaves sufficient play for all normal operation

By the end of the day I could assemble the trucks, install the wipers and connect the electrical wires.

At last it runs completely on its own!!