I've been reading through some older threads here because I'm trying to decide the best course for polishing the axles under the crown brasses and rod crank pins on a narrow gauge 2-8-2. My problem is, the engine has been sitting in its current location for almost 15 years and it was drug there on greased rail. Before that, it sat in another location for about 40 years. When it was moved the first time 50 years ago, I'm told that it was put on a sled and drug, but I was also told that it was rolled out of the shop. The gray area here is if it was rolled to a waiting sled, or, if the sled became necessary after rolling out of the shop without being properly prepped. My assumption is the latter.

The engine is missing all of the driver spring rigging, and the #2 and 3 axles were raised above the rail by wedges under the grease cellars. This exposed the bearing surfaces and allowed a lot of rust. My plan was to remove the cellars and jack the boxes to give myself more clearance for polishing. This space is maybe 3/4" at most. Do any of you have experience on performing an operation like this? I was thinking of using a bit of emery cloth for the axles. What would be a good solution for the brass? I'm not intending to stick my fingers in there...

Also, is there any good alternative to journal oil I could use? They won't be moving hardly, and anything will help. Advice on good, long term oil pads or alternatives for preservation would be welcome.

The engine is going to be moved at some point in the next year or so about 100 feet. I'd prefer to have it roll there if at all possible.

If possible, drop the binders and cellars and approach the bearing surfaces from below, where there's enough room to do some good work on the surfaces. You can put flap wheels or polishing wheels in a drill motor and go after the surfaces that way, and get them adequately clean to roll. Do the part you can see, roll it a bit, and do the next part. After 4 or 5 rolls, you have it all done. The crankpins same thing but you can probably reach them allat once with the rods dropped.

Leave the brasses alone apart from cleaning off any hard flaky stuff with a wire brush and a lot of compressed air and solvent.

I'd use some thick assembly lube like antisieze with a lot of slippery metallic particles held in a greasy suspension rather than a light oil for short term, then perhaps go with sponge filled oil cellars using a lighter oil for longer moves until you get the journals turned.

dave

What kind of abrasives would be best? I've got an angle grinder with a couple different wire wheels. A die grinder would be nice but don't have one available. Think I'll be doing most of this by hand.

Start with a wire wheel to power off the loose flakes, then go to a flapwheel / sanding disc type of abrasive that actually smoothes out the surface. Absolute smoothness is not the goal - just flattening in general even if pits remain, and eliminating the high pointy spots that could tear into the brasses.

dave

Hi John:
I was in charge of preparing the Steamtown collection for it's move from Bellows Falls, VT to Scranton, PA 1983 through 1986. Our crews prepared dozens of steam locomotives and cars for the movement on their own wheels. Many of them had not turned a wheel in years and had badly rusted axles.
On some of them, we used die grinders and flapping wheels as Dave suggested, but if you have no air or electricity for a die grinder, I would suggest "sand screen", an emery based abrasive that looks sort of like window screen, sold in rolls of varying widths and grits. Cut off a length long enough to go around half the axle or pin plus enough to hold onto at each end and work it back and forth like polishing a shoe. Start with a coarse grit and work your way down to finer grit. It is time consuming but will do the job.
Of all the locomotives and cars we moved only one ran hot (B&M No. 3713). The axles on that one were badly scored before polishing, but it made it to Scranton...
As Dave said, clean the bearing as best you can with a solvent (we use lacquer thinner).
I would suggest using a water proof grease about the consistency of automotive chassie lube.
Good luck!
J.David

I have prepared two locomotives for movement on their wheels (not long distances, basically onto & off of transport ). J. David's method is basically what we did, jack up brasses, then 'shoe shine" the shafts with abrasives. I would avoid emery cloth, as it leaves grit in the metal. after developing a smooth surface, heavy grease with slip ingredients (such as Teflon or graphite) in suspension were then liberally applied before setting the brasses back down (of course area was cleaned as thoroughly as possible before applying the grease. I would think wire wheels and flap wheels would possibly do damage to the shaft surface.
One locomotive had not been moved in 4 decades, and has since been moved quite a bit, with no apparent new damage. (Far more moving than I would have approved, BTW!)
When you have the ability to move the locomotive a bit, it does make the bearing cleaning & polishing a lot easier.

My plain bearing experience is strictly with streetcars and interurbans expected to be in fairly regular museum type service or in commercial, heritage service. I have been very cautious in the use of metallic (or coarse) grit paper when cleaning / polishing journals on cars expected to be in regular operation due to concerns about metal embedding. For a park locomotive with badly rusted / pitted journals that may never run again, this may not be as much of a concern.

The concern goes back to the A.A.R. Wheel and Axle Manual from January 1964, page 24. I may be overly cautious with this practice but on the other hand, I have not had to deal with a hot box over 42 years of working with these things.

"2A.14PB Journals must never be cleaned with a coarse abrasive or polished with emery under heavy pressure. The abrasive may become embedded in the steel and contribute to a hot box. Polishing may be done with artificial abrasive cloth (No. 180 grit or finer, free from ridges, selvage, etc.) using plenty of oil on a wooden block hollowed out to fit the journal. Only light pressure shall be applied".

The above is axle lathe practice, obviously much more refined than out in the field. At various times on streetcar trucks with lightly rusted journals, we have used medium (red) Scotchbrite or similar products to clean journals. We have also fabricated hardwood replacement bearings contoured with the journals and fitted with fine, non-metallic paper and oiled and run the trucks (with no carbody on top) back and forth to deal with heavier rusting and light pitting.

I'm very interested to hear how everyone else has dealt with this problem.

Gord M.
Halton County Radial Ry.
Milton, ON
Canada

I once helped clean up some nose bearing journals, the man I helped had a 4 in +/- by 1 1/2 in disk that he had turned so it had a little crowning to keep the belt centered and flanges on both sides, it had a 1/4 in shaft that chucked up in a battery drill, he would cut a 3 foot piece of 1 in abrasive cloth, loop it around the axle, tape the splice and use the drill at low speed to polish the journal.

-Hudson

I like the wooden block idea--this seems to be really good when you can roll the axle back and forth--kinda hard to do on Steam Driver Axles though. The "power belt" is pretty clever too--would save a LOT of labor--wish we had that idea when were prepiing a park engine for movement!
I find the grit specifications interesting; I guess I over-did, as I consider 180 grit for rough surfaces, and like to finish with at least 400. I also think it is important to keep the sanding in the direction of axle movement, so and ridges that might develop follow the bearing (sort of like in wood, sanding with the grain).
I was remembering that we had a diesel engine with plain bearings, and one of the axles had deep pitting from decades of sitting in a salt-air climate. As an emergency measure (in this case, the empty pocketbook of the owner) we removed the brasses to allow access to the axle, and I actually used a Dremel tool with small grinding stones to round the edges of the deep pits, so they wouldn't 'catch' on the babbit and scrape it out. Since we were volunteers, the labor time was not important. We then followed with the fine grit "shoeshine" polishing, and the locomotive saw many years of service afterwards--although I will admit, I was holding my breath for a bit there! Our theory was the pits would become oil reservoirs, and not effect the bearing surface much, if at all.
BTW, most displayed locos, if not moved while on display, will develop a rust "strip" between the brasses and the grease block--this surface is pretty available for cleaning once the grease block is removed. If one were to move such a loco motive, my strong recommendation would be to at least sand that area down before attempting any movement of the loco. The more you can inspect and pre-lube those axles, the less likely you will cause damage that becomes expensive to repair later!

Gord, there's a brand of lapping compound that polishes then wears into an innocuous, nonabrasive substance that works very well for the light surface polishing you talk about....I can't recall the name but I'm sure others on this list are familiar with it. Jack Anderson turned me on to it many years ago for journal polishing without worrying about cleanup, and I used it on in-service equipment a few times with good results.

dave

Here are my notes on cleaning up the journals for CNR 6213 a few years back.

http://www.trainweb.org/j.dimech/6167/6213-5.html

and my notes from the same procedure on CNR 6167 also a few years back:

http://www.trainweb.org/j.dimech/journal/100410.html
http://www.trainweb.org/j.dimech/journal/100422.html
http://www.trainweb.org/j.dimech/journal/100505.html
http://www.trainweb.org/j.dimech/journal/100607.html

I really like the idea of rolling the trucks by hand with the journals "self polishing". Same for the hand drill idea. I was thinking I could do something along those lines and I'm glad someone provided a finished idea. Just to clarify something that I am confused by... emery cloth or not? Once, I'm done, will something like anti-sieze serve as a "preservation" grease rather than what I would use in service?

There are several types of abrasive cloth. These are the most common.

Emery: cheap tends to breakdown fairly fast.

Aluminum Oxide: good general usage, OK for Brass

Silicone Carbide: The good stuff can be used wet or dry, be careful with brass as the fragments can become permanently imbedded.

Artificial Diamond: most likely out of your price range

and many others

-Hudson

John, I'd use something like anti seize or open gear grease - the heavy stocky kind - for a longer lasting coating on a bearing for outdoor static display. If the gear grease won't come off your hands when you try to wash it off, it sure will stick to the journals. I think it is available in spray cans for small jobs such as yours.

dave

Dave: I think the brand of lapping compound you mention (as recommended by Jack Anderson) is Timesaver. A search of "timesaver lapping compound" will lead to several suppliers. It is available in Yellow, for soft copper based alloys and babbits, and Green for hard steels and stainless. It's excellent stuff but I'm not sure that its really suitable for the topic of this thread as the rust would still need to be manually removed before using Timesaver, perhaps it would be good as a second stage. Timesaver is really intended for providing a fine fit on newly machined components and as an emergency treatment for a hot running bearing. The grit in it truly does dissolve in oil in pretty short order, I've used it quite a bit.
P. Hosford