Dear honorable Gentlemen,

I am getting ready to help my new friends and narrow gauge steam preservationists at the ABPF (Assoc. of Brazilian Preservation RR) in Campinas, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

They have an amazing collection of 17 steam engines and cars from Link and Pin wood up too modern Budd SS.

Since I only have 2yrs to help them I wanted to take on something to help them and my skill set. So I want to expend my energies rebuilding air pumps for them. As they are a flat RR they don't need high capacity cross compound pumps. So I want to start by rebuilding 9" pumps.

They have several in pieces and several working but they are inherited from several former railroad companies and they have no documentation, drawings or standardized spare parts.

So to my long winded requist is, who out there has experience with rebuilding 9"ers? First I know that I can buy parts from Bernie Watts and Back Shop Inc. But what kind of measurement tools should I buy?
I was thinking about, 12" & 6" DigiCalipers, Telescoping Gauges to 12", 1" DigiMicrometer, Metric & Engl. Threadgauges, Wire brushes, paint markers and ID tags and lots of time to measure and inventory all parts.

Does anyone know of any good books, still available somewhere, that help describe the rebuilding and maintence of air pumps? I'm willing to invest some money for my own tools and will probalby buy the first set of parts. After the 2 years I hope to leave them with a few extra servicable pumps and mantence and rebuilding documentation, just for fun in Portuguese which I'm just learning.

By the way supposedly the 315 in Durango has new Chinese 9" Air Pumps? Does anyone know if there is a supplier for these and what they cost?

Thanks for any help.

Thor

Hi Thor;

Multipower International in China is the supplier of those air pumps, their website is at:

http://www.multipowerinternational.com/

My "Steam Lizards" Group on Yahoo does not have any experts that I am aware of when it comes to Westinghouse air brake pumps. But many of them have had experience restoring or overhauling other types of steam pumps, and may be able to help you:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/steam_lizards

I took some pictures of a Westinghouse (WABCO) air brake pump being overhauled at the Texas State Railroad. They, along with a drawing of an 11 inch air brake pump, can be found at:

http://www.survivingworldsteam.com/gallery/album67

I think that is all I have on hand, but it should at least get you started. Best of luck with your new project.

It would be useful to know that the Chinese pumps and governors are of a different design than the WABCO or NYAB. Parts are definitely not interchangeable. I have only had one engine equipped with a Chinese pump and governor in my care - both purchased used rebuilt - neither was satisfactory. The governor was bad order upon delivery, the pump didn't last a season. Based on my experience I would not recommend Multi-Power appliances. New ones may be better or not. Perhaps somebody with direct experience can tell us.

dave

The Westinghouse 9 1/2 is a verry simple pump to rebuild. I have done some work on them.

at the risk of soundin' like AM4,
a search of google books (full content only) yielded 7 download books on westinghouse brakes. I haven't looked at them yet
most were early 1900's
I like these old books because some of the info, if not directly the units you are rebuilding, are "best practices" of the time.
I have many books downloaded and from what I can tell,
the railroads changed products and processes slowly so olds parts and mechanisms are very similar
as for a field service measurement tools wish list, add:

a surface plate, v blocks and dial indicators w/ stands for measuring straightness, flatness and concentricity.
some nice big ground flats could be worth their weight on gold at times to make something flat again with some carbide and diamond compound (various grits) to go with the flats

I am not sure where you are going, and how remote, but...
from my experiences out of counrty, in fairly urban areas,
assume Nothing is available like here
heck, I'd even send a cheap small crate of tools
especially anything in relation to spanners (not british wrenches, actual spanners) allen wrenches, hones and specialty tools

and above all check customs and such for any $ required to get stuff in country, brazil can be tough
also check state dept web site for all prohibited items
some common techy tools are illegal as a 500 pound bag of weed, and may require, well...um....
the local "clearing agent" (which you need if clearing parts and tools in an expeditious time frame) to have a "private discussion" with the customs agent

good luck, take lots of pics, and enjoy an amazing part of the world

(by the way, no offense ment Alexander)

dr dodge

I'd ship everything as a gift/donation, and not even try to bring anything back

As mentioned above they are really quite simple to work on. I am not sure what really wears out on them. They are like energiser batteries, they just keep going. Maintanence is or can be an issue, but for actual rebuilding you would have to measure to see it they indeed needed anything. I would think a supply of gaskets, rings if you need them and packing would be all you would need to keep on hand. I have taken apart quite a few of them that hadn't run for years. Was mostly clean up the rust, get parts freed up, hook on to house air and away you go. As if by magic, they usually will run. They do have a few funny quirks, but really they are a very simple and easy thing to work on. I laugh in memory of a valve gasket put on backwards. The pump would stroke once and quit. I had done many pumps before and was really stumped. Took the thing apart numerous times looking for a broken or sticky part. Ha, there is a small hole that needs to line up with air/steam passage. Easy to miss, but your pump won't go anywhere if you have the gasket backwards. I was so mad at the time, but is cracks me up now. Simple fix took me all afternoon to figure out.

Back in about 1972 or so, some machinist friends of mine decided to "rebuild" the air pumps on a loco. They put the cyl on a Bullard 36" VTL and cleaned up the bore. Then they went and got some slugs from our burning table at work and machined some very nice pistons. Well the road to hell is paved with good intentions. First off don't use mild steel cutouts for pistons, they should be cast steel. Then don't use automotive tolerances. They obviously heat up and you need rather sloppy tolerances or you will have scored cyl. I am being vague on dementions because I don't know what they should be, but my friends good intentions were way to tight and the pumps had to be reworked all over again. They didn't know, it was much harder to find info out pre internet. I don't think they asked anybody though, because there were people around that knew better. Sounds like you are about to have some fun times down there, be safe. Cheers, John.

[quote="John Risley"]First off don't use mild steel cutouts for pistons, they should be cast steel. quote]

Cast iron.

dave

.

Thanks for straightening me out Dave. When I wrote that I thought "was it iron or steel"? Cast iron for sure. I knew the pistons from a steam loco are cast iron, wasn't positive on air pumps, but would make sense. I hate cast iron so much I just want things made from cast steel thats all. Cheers, John.

Actually John, one day we were tearing down a cross compound at Backshop, and Bernie was very surprised to find a steel piston in it, so it has been done, just not by WABCO as original material. I still recall vividly his taking it and an iron piston to the grinder and comparing the sparks to make sure.

dave

From what I hear Chinese butterfly firedoors also make good fishing boat accessories. Does anybody have any first hand experience with these?

John Bohon

I can relate a funny story that occured while I was working on Quakertown & Eastern #4 (ex-BC&G #4) back in the early 70's. We were having trouble with one of the pumps and we had located some information on an air pump laundry, yes, that's what they called it. You simply hooked up the air intake to a tank of lye and proceed to pump the liquid through to clean out the carbon and oil. What a mistake, after blowing out all the gunk, we found out that it was all that was holding everything together. We ended up ordering all new rings, valves, cages, packings etc. Not to mention having to buy new boots as the old ones fell apart. We performed that fatefull episode at the Reading's Saucon roundhouse in Hellertown, Pa. Those were the days.

A little off the topic of air pumps, but from the admittedly limited experience I have had firing a Chinese QJ, the firedoors worked just fine. A little small, but that just improves aim. The air operator worked very well. About the only appliance that did.

On the air pump pistons, IIRC, the air pistons are of a different material than the steam pistons.
Mark D.

Western Maryland Scenic's 2-8-0 has been operating with the same chinese firebox doors since the start of the 1998 season. I spent many years on this locomotive and was never witness to any problems with the firebox doors.

Michael Manwiller

That is interesting. The doors on 734 get used a lot. The only other Chinese doors I have information on failed when the gears wore out to the point of failure after less than one season. Obviously there is a difference in quality here.

Thanks for the information.

John Bohon