There has been some discussion among members lately about returning our Plymouth #1 to service as a backup. This unit was built for the Hayes Albion foundry in Albion, Mi in the late 30's. Soon after the unit arrived it was re-powered with a more modern Cummins Diesel.

Reports are that this engine had a habit of blowing torque converters as the RPMs were too fast and probably supplied too much power for the transmission. Unfortunately most of the people who worked on this unit have moved on or are no longer with us.

The question came up of returning this engine to the original Le Roi engine if one could be found in serviceable condition. We do have a parts locomotive that has an original engine but it suffered a thrown rod at some point and blew a basketball sized hole in the side of the block.

Does anyone here know of any Le Roi engines that may be available?

If the Cummins that's in it now is putting out RPMs higher than the transmission can handle, wouldn't it be easier to do some sort of reduction gearing before the transmission?

Or simply dial back the RPM of the Cummins, and in doing so, also reduce the HP. Plymouth routinely did this when they repowered many early gasoline powered models, especially those with torque converters.

You'll have a hard time finding one of those old cast iron monsters in the first place and you'll likely go broke feeding it gasoline.

There are three known Plymouth engines with LeRoi V-8 gas engines that I know of left. One is in Wichita KS at the Great Plains Transportation Museum and is undergoing some engine work including a valve job on the heads. The second is located in Chandler, AZ at the Arizonia Railroad Museum. It had a major air compressor failure and is in the process of being rebuilt using parts from two donor engines they found in Texas that had powered a cotton gin. The third engine is intact and is in a local history museum in LaJunita, CO.

If you currently have a Cummins engine in your locomotive I would leave it and talk to the Cummins people and who ever in your area that works on torque converters. It could be several issues causing them to fail but all will be cheaper and far easier to do than going backwards with a LeRoi. They are gas hogs and its a trick to get them to run right due to the way they are set up. Parts for the ignition system are far and few between. We had to build a new distributor for ours in Wichita due to the parts issue.

The original motor from what I was told was a strait 6 Diesel that started on Gas on the first cylinder. The rear two cylinders were air compressors making the engine a 4 powered cylinder.

To the best of my knowledge Plymouth used a straight 6 Leroy in the 30 tonners and a V8 Leroy in the 35 tonners. These were gasoline engines not diesel. which locomotive do you have?

Probably this one right here:

http://www.railroadmichigan.com/smichply04.jpg

I'm assuming when the cummins was put in, whoever did it matched the torque converter to it....presumably, this was quite some time ago...So, you might want to look at newer generation cummins torque converters or perhaps something from the large truck market...you might find something that can be adapted relatively easily...

Since I don't want to go through the Plymouth builder's list one page at a time please give the builder's number.

Most torque converters that are married to a Cummins are Twin Disc and they are very rebuildable. The rpm's do have to be adjusted to match and also you need to look at the how the fluid is routed to the aftercooler on the front. Another big killer is there is an air leak and the system gets full of air. That will kill a converter also. I might note that the three engines I was talking about in my previous post were all Department of the Army units built for the war in 1942/43.

The question comes down to; do you want to restore it, or do you want to use it?

What cummins engine is in it now?
What converter is in it? Twin disc has an ok parts support and allison is better. Most of the stand alone converters are designed to hold up to some decent torque IF the coolers are right.

That is the loco in question. Below is some additional information I recieved from one of our founding members who saw the post.

"if memory serves me correctly, the the main problem with the torque converter was a failure of the dump valves. One or two came loose and broke, and replacements had to be made, as the manufacturer couldn't help. These suffered a similar fate.

When the Cummins was initially installed, there was also a failure of the gear which connected the engine to the torque converter. This was determined to be due to lack of support to the joint between the two, and some i-beams were welded in to add this support.

Finally, it is not certain that the LeRoi was the original engine in this Plymouth. When delivered it has a LeRoi radiator, and if you look at most Plymouths, they have a Plymouth radiator. This is a clue it may have been a replacement."




As delivered condition to the SMRS

Also we do not have the serial number to this unit as the builder tag has been lost and no frame numbers have been found. I believe the original name of the foundry it came from was Albion Malleable Iron Co.

Last intact LeRoi I've seen was in the Stewartstown RR "mighty Mo" Plymouth, and at the time, the claim was that it was serviceable.

Not that anybody is volunteering that as a source, just identifying where surviving locomotives and some expertise may still lie.

http://www.stewartstownrailroad.com/locomotives.htm

Operating video in 2015: https://youtu.be/F_9UA93HOec

When I got a good look at it, the most impressive thing in the cab was the enormous clutch pedal and the 'gear shift'.... and the very obvious LeRoi identification on the gasoline engine castings.

Our was updated with an air powered clutch at some point, I have heard stories of the joys of shifting a the 4 ft gear lever with 2 ft of throw with strait cut gears.