We recently purchased a 50 ton GE. It had, at some point, been re-engined with 1974-vintage (known as small-cam, I believe) Cummins 855s. The exact model is N-855-L1. Both engines ran great when the loco was purchased. Unfortunately, the front engine had a defect that was completely undetectable, and it chose to manifest itself shortly after arriving on our property. (Murphy's law of non-profits and railroad museums) Now we are facing a huge rebuild job on said prime mover. Since 855s are very common, conventional wisdom would dictate simply finding a good used engine and dropping it in. My question is whether or not 855s not of the "L1" class have the same flywheel to allow them to be mated to the GE main generator, and if the the Cam settings, ect. are close enough among various 855 models to keep the amount of tractive effort relatively the same between the two locomotive ends.

Here's a much easier question: Does anyone know of an N-855-L which is available? These are of the non-turbo variety.

Any help would be appreciated.

I hope all RYPN'ers are having a great holiday season.

You can unbolt the bell housing and flywheel off the bad engine and bolt it up to the replacement engine.
I don't know about the fuel system, does the 50 ton loco throttle have notches like the bigger ones?

Just saw some engine manuals on e-bay that cover all the models, the fuel system will have different settings between turbo and non turbo models.

I have an engine that may work. I sent you a PM.

First of all, can I ask what happened to the engine. You can overhaul these relatively inexpensively as long as there was not a catastrophic failure or if it spun the cam bearings.

First thing I would do is contact a good Cummins dealer. Tell them what you have and ask them if you can swap out a Big Cam I, II or III in its place. The Big Cam IVs changed a lot of parts so avoid those. The big cams seem to use different style injectors and this may throw off your fuel delivery too much.

There should be plenty of good used small cam 855s out there. Just make sure that they have the same style cooling system. They built them with high flow and low flow systems. Since the locomotive/industrial versions of this engine seem to all use their own unique PT pump/governor assembly and possibly injectors, I would look at a potential engine as a long block option. Take a truck engine and strip the turbo, manifolds, aftercooler and anything else that your engine does not have. Use your injectors, PT pump and manifolds. Make sure that the front of the engine is close to yours. Some of the loco/industrial engines did not have harmonic balancers.

Again, a Cummins dealer is going to be your best resource on this, so long as you can find one that is willing to take the time with you. I have been working with my local dealer with the options for repowering our 50ton which still has the original HBI6 engines. You are further ahead than I am with your 855s. I would be interested in seeing some photos of how your engines fit within the hood. Let me know if you have any specific questions. I believe we can help each other out on our projects.

Eric

A CPL number or Serial number would help identify you particular engine. A Cummins dealer will ask for this to assist you as well. A photograph of both sides of the engine would help. Is this engine turbocharged? The bell housing needs to be indicated to center - plus or minus a few thousands. The fly wheel will bolt right up.

Another good source for Cummins engines is surplus army trucks. Some of the smaller older 6 X 6 trucks use the non-turboed 250 Cummins that should be in these locomotives. The newer 6 X 6 use a turbocharged Cummins of about 350 hp.

High horsepower really gains you nothing in these locomotives. The 250 is big enough.

Check out the government sites, they are selling these trucks all over the U.S. They usually bring $5,000 or less. They recently sold 5 rebuilt trucks out of Wisconsin that only had 2 hours on them. The trucks were rebuilt 5 years ago and then stored.

Talk about stupid and government waste.

NOT an accident. Quite often, usable pieces come to railway museums because (often out of experimentation) developed a niggling, difficult problem that ultimately was more trouble than it was worth for them.

- Muni 0305 is a state-of-the-art overhead line train, which in its first week of use, derailed in the Metro tunnel, trashing the afternoon commute. It was never run again.

- WM 75's auxiliary generators had their reverse-current relays replaced with diodes. Since then, the unit has popped auxiliary generators like popcorn.

It had one cylinder run hot and become badly scored. We believe this was caused by a blockage in a cooling passage in the block. When we pulled the liner, a significant amount of coolant ran out, in spite of the fact that the engine had been drained. We found metal shavings laying on top of the crank, dictating at least a full tear-down. Not sure if the crank is bad, yet, but leaving it in and just replacing the bad liner will likely cause it to be, once pieces of metal start finding their way into the crank bearings (if they haven't already).

You sent it to France?

dave

Nice. Asterlix and Oberlix et Cie ...

lol insert "become badly scored"

It isn't notched. They weren't, even with the old HBI600's. If you open the throttle with the reverser in forward or reverse, the power contactor picks up. There is a cable going from the throttle assembly to each engine.

Do the turbo and non-turbo versions use the same heads?

I'll be happy to assist in your project in any way that I can!

I have a Cummins small cam engine out of a GE locomotive just looking for someone to put it to use...

I've seen the oil squirter that squirts the bottom of the piston to help cool it clog and have a cylinder run hot and lock up. When it cooled down it broke free and knocked pretty good while running.