I am trying to de-bug the Chicago 3 feed hydrostatic lubricator on our Vulcan. Since I may hurt myself if I attempt to heave it out the cab window, I figured it still may be less painful to make it work correctly. I understand these to be pretty simple and unless theres coral polyps or something deep inside, they ought to work.
We chased a litany of woes like leaks and goobers in the preferrably goober-less places, and get to the point where the condensate forms, sight-glasses clear, and adjusting the feed rate
becomes possible. However, feeding soon stops and the lubricator appears to go into stasis. Reading my old lubricator books dont really get to the heart of what Im running into. Either I still have some internal defect in the lubricator or some other factor is coming into play.

Questions for our learned experts:

1) Should the feeds ever be started if the device being fed isnt "running" ?
2) Should set feed rate continue unabated (more or less) regardless of the rate of use of air pump or throttle to the steam cylinders ?
3) What would be the symptoms if the orifices were mismatched at the top end or bottom end chokes ?
4) Any tips for testing a hydrostatic lubricator ?
5) Anything else that would cause it to stop feeding after apparently starting up normally ?
6) Should I pitch this one and use the Detroit 22 we have ?

Thanks,

Bill



staybolt@bellsouth.net

Having banged heads on this piece of junk for a few weeks, it seems that given the relative inexperience of your organization with operating steam and the high experiential / constant fiddling worn out hydrostatic lubricators require that we replace it with a dependable and reliable mechanical which is much easier to keep in reliable working order. remember, down time is very expensive financially and credibility wise.

Dave

irondave@bellsouth.net

With regard to your lubricator failing to feed. In the case of the line to the air compressor, if the oil line tees into the steam line upstream of the governor, the lubricator wonÂ’t feed, or will feed very slowly if the steam is on to the compressor, and the governor has closed due to the air being pumped up. This is due to the pressure in the a. p. steam line being at or near boiler pressure with little, or no flow. This makes for too little pressure difference in the lubricator for it to work. If it feeds at all in this state, it will usually run away and over feed once the compressor starts running in earnest. The solution to this is simple enough, just close the turret valve to the compressor while setting the feed, and reopen it when set.

A similar situation could occur in the engines if the locomotive were being worked at full throttle at low speed, in that the steam pipe pressure might get close enough to boiler pressure to stop the lubricator from feeding. Of course, in a situation like that, everybody is usually too busy to look at the lubricator feeds anyway.

You might also look for clogged chokes in the oil lines where they tee into the steam lines. This would also cause the lack of pressure difference mentioned above.


kelly@strasburgrailroad.com

Thanks for the thoughts- I could see a barely visible pulsation in the air pump feed when the pump ran, and as you say, feeding stopped around the time the pump stopped. That seems to match what I'm seeing and makes sense- governor shut equals no flow.

As for the cylinder feeds, I blew them out, and verified that there was no smegma in there. I'm less sure of what is happening on these as they quit before pulling much throttle at all. We may end up going with a mechanical just to simplify things and get positive oiling.



staybolt@bellsouth.net

> Thanks for the thoughts- I could see a
> barely visible pulsation in the air pump
> feed when the pump ran, and as you say,
> feeding stopped around the time the pump
> stopped. That seems to match what I'm seeing
> and makes sense- governor shut equals no
> flow.

> As for the cylinder feeds, I blew them out,
> and verified that there was no smegma in
> there. I'm less sure of what is happening on
> these as they quit before pulling much
> throttle at all. We may end up going with a
> mechanical just to simplify things and get
> positive oiling.
Bill
Your problem hit home for me this afternoon as our Detroit 32 started to act in the same manner. What we determined was that there was air in the feed line, caused by not completely filling the lubricator resevoir to overflow. After refilling the resevior we had no problems.

Tom

ironbartom@aol.com

>caused by not
> completely filling the lubricator resevoir
> to overflow. After refilling the resevior we
> had no problems.

> Tom

Tom, we werent running it full as we were debugging and I got tired of emptying and refilling after the 5th time I disassembled it, so I could have been bit by the same thing- I'll know this weekend of thats the case-

Thanks
Bill

staybolt@bellsouth.net