Hi Folks,

As you may know, a small group of volunteers at the Albion (Maine) Historical Society - aided by folks from the WW&F Railroad museum - have been working hard to restore the original WW&F's terminal station at Albion, Maine. In addition to the wonderful work these folks have done restoring the building itself and the former WW&F mainline across the property; the snowplow switch has been rebuilt (and shortly the siding); and a reproduction of the one of the WW&F's flangers is under construction.

To pull the flanger and to help generate more local interest, the museum has received a 3' foot gauge Plymouth, gas mechanical locomotive that it has regauged to 2'. But there is a fly in the ointment. The motor for Albion's Plymouth FL1 gas mechanical locomotive is having compression problems. To resolve these problems, museum volunteers will have to remove the head. But they don't want to do this until they have a new head gasket. They have checked with Plymouth and found that the current gasket is copper and a new replacement will cost roughly $250. The Albion Historical Society doesn't have this kind of money to spend for a new gasket.

My question, "Is there a cheaper alternative to the copper gasket?" If so, where can they find one."

The engine specs follow:
Mfg: Buda
Model #: KTU4868B/M
The head is held in place with 22 bolts and has the characters "LE 351" cast into it.

If you can provide any assistance, please either respond here or contact me at email "christensenge@yahoo.com".


Thanks and Best Regards,
Glenn Christensen

I don’t have the answer, but you might ask these people. They are quite resourceful in rebuilding old engines.

http://www.antiquecaterpillar.net/ACF_v2/

First thought, if $250 breaks the bank maybe operating a real locomotive is not in the cards. Second thought, check with your local industrial supply house about gasket material suitable for that application and then cut one out yourselves.

Tom's right - you can of course cut a new gasket out of commercially made gasket material, readily available from McMaster, Grainger and other suppliers, or even of sheet copper if you prefer. That requires some fair amount oif skill and good tools for the purpose to prevent scoring or marring the gasket surfaces. It might save more than 60% of the cost, but cost more in time and aggrivation, presuming you get it right the first time.

The trade off is in reliability and support - if the factory new gasket fails upon installation due to a manufacturing defect, you have recourse. If the home made one fails, start over. If you aren't worried about the potential cost of the trains that won't run if the home made gasket material fails, relative to the $250 for the proven stuff which is less likely to fail, perhaps it makes sense. Many of you would be amazed at the number of operation managers that don't understand the cost of not running as advertised.

$250 is chump change for locomotive parts in the 21st century. Sell a few more lobsters and get the best you can for reliability and long-term headache avoidance.

dave

I should assume, but will ask anyhow, if you've tried the simple expedient of consulting NAPA? I've often been amazed at what those folks can come up with in the way of long thought to be obsolete parts. When overhauling a 1922 Vulcan gas loco I needed an entire gasket set for the elderly Hercules engine. NAPA had it on the shelf in a nearby state, two days later I had it.

The latter day parts places won't help you if it doesn't appear in their computer, but any long established NAPA agency seems to have lots of other resources.

Good luck!

I have had good luck with this outfit. http://www.gasketstogo.com/ They do alot of stuff for the antique tractor boys.

Thanks all!

I have passed along all suggestions - and even better - a private individual has stepped forward to help the folks in Albion out. The guys there are ecstatic!

Thanks again.

We used dead soft copper head gaskets on our Blown Alky engines. Baring any physical damage we threw them in an oven at around 275 degrees for on hour, took them out made sure they were kept flat while cooling, used a LITTLE sealant around the water ports and were good to go.
Keeping any gasket sealed is more a function of block and head surface, read that as flat (no more than .005 warp) and proper clamping, i.e. draw the head down evenly, Lacking a printed pattern or spec's to follow, start in the middle and work your way out evenly in a circular pattern using the specs for the diameter bolt being used. Make sure the bolts are not installed dry,lite amount of oil, the threads are clean both on the fastener and in the block. Tighten in 2 or three steps, do not go right to the final value.
If you don't have to resurface the head this is about the cheapest way to do this. Resurfacing the head is good insurance though.

Here is a second option for you in case you need it;

Consider contracting with a draftsman or engineer to draw the gasket in a simple cad program. Its only a 2D drawing and should not take more then 1 hour to draw out.

Then with cad file in hand, locate a good water jet shop, they could cut that gasket (after they ordered and received the material). It might warp little while its being cut as parts of the material release built in stresses from the manufacture, so you might have to deal with that, but its a simple if slow process to straighten it.

You would then own the cad file and any time in the future that you needed to do a rebuild or head-off repair, a second or third gasket would be a lot cheaper and quicker.

After word got around that you had these available you might find yourself in the;
"Buda motored, Plymouth Locomotive Copper Head Gasket" market. Thats probably not a booming business.

Best of Luck with your 2-footer efforts!

Thanks guys!

Sincerely,
Glenn

once you have solved your fixit, you have a headstart to help any others out there with similar issues.

Here's a source for Buda engine parts:

http://www.budaengine.com/

It'd be worth checking on availability and price from a second source before you drop $250.

Talk to old tractor guys... they have sources, but $250.00 is not out of line...

Steinbeck in Grapes of Wrath describes how by carefully un-torquing the head, the head gasket can be reused, by those who are broke and desperate... on trucks c. 1930, which share much in the way of the technology of your Plymouth.

We have a 1922 DL-2, with a Buda... We need to pull the head at some point (not critical, but the day is coming...) we need to do a clutch as well... parts for these old guys are hard... Luckily they are low tech, and there are ways of working around lack of parts... Magneto guys, Carburetor re-builders are still around, but disappearing fast.

I am more worried about our 1970 Plymouth with a gas International Harvester engine.... We rebuilt it a couple of years ago, and parts were hard then... and will not get easier to find in the future... this loco does not take well to make shift parts.

There may be a time when it is easier to re-build (for operation) a 1890 Porter 0-4-0 than to rebuild a 1970 railroad locomotive...

For all things about old engines, etc, check out the SmokStak forum;

http://www.smokstak.com/forum/index.php

This site is populated by folks that are mostly into making old engines, etc, run.

Lots of good folks willing to help.

Now, if you really want to get cheap;

Get a scrap slab of granite (1 foot by 2 foot, or so) from a local kitchen/bathroom countertop vendor.

Buy a bunch of 50 or 80 grit stick on sandpaper discs and cover the granite slab.

Spend a couple of cold winter nights polishing up the mating surfaces of the engine block and the head until everything is flat within a couple of thousands or so. You can easily check it with a feeler gauge.

Spend ~$50 bucks for a piece of modern composite gasket material. (McMaster-Carr)

SLOWLY cut out the correct shape of the gasket with a razor knife.

Total cost: ~ $100

Grief and aggravation: PRICELESS

I’ve been there and done that on a BUDA in a 1920’s Plymouth BL-2. It works, but boy is it a pain.

Some Other Observations;

Copper is a decent gasket material, but it WILL NOT deform enough to fill in deep scratches or gouges in a mating surface, neither will the modern materials.

Nothing beats two good FLAT, GOUGE FREE surfaces when making a pressure seal (Steam, Internal Combustion, etc. etc.)

This may be little known, but back in WWII the P51 mustang fighter plane did not use head gaskets! The gasket technology at the time was not advanced enough. They actually shipped big granite blocks to England and a crew of men would “lap” the engine block (and cylinder head) surfaces to a nice flat surface by moving the cast iron around on the granite block with some nice grit (probably emery). Lapped joints are still used today for some applications like high vacuum systems and where cleanliness is a concern.

So, the most important factor is FLAT and SMOOTH mating surfaces, once you have that, almost any inexpensive gasket material will function properly (assuming it can handle the temperatures and the fluids).

Cheers, Kevin.