Here is a lead you might be able to follow. The late Ivan Ergish of Idaho built at least one live steam Class A Climax. He made a tool for cutting historically accurate skew gears. Odds are the locomotive and the gear cutter are still out there.

For those of you who are into CADD or might know someone who can help you, I am attaching some XLS and pdf files from which one can calculate and create skew bevel gears of your own. Complete with instructions.

I asked for help and Bent Gobel, an Engineer in Denmark provided it.

The 16-41 files are the calculations for the gears on CN 1551. One for the Ring Gear and one for the pinion gear.

Best of luck.

Below are two profiles of a Climax Ring Gear. Top per Climax and the bottom per the new cast Ring Gears on 1551 with chamfer instead of a curve. All the dimensions are from a Climax drawing except the one noted from Wayne James who prepared the patterns for 1551's new Ring Gears.

The projections are studs that lock into the axle and are 5".

Not applicable (to large unless scaled) to Class A's except as an example of how Climax did it originally (for those who might have any interest).

If anyone attempts gears using the formulas and wants to see what the prototype gears look like let me know and I will post links to 3D pdfs.

Spoke with John Lewis. He does have a drawing of the Climax 2-speed gearbox and some tabular info (gear ratios, etc.) and maybe drawings of the Class A gears in addition to the cross boxes and will as time and opportunity arises will share that info and those drawings with me and I will post it.

As for the drawings, I have permission to re-create them in the manner of the F509 profiles and share them (not the drawings themselves).

Do expect this to to be a slow process though.

Looking forward to your drawings!

Would you have drawings for the spoked wheels available? They would be very useful to me.

Thanks

Chris

I do have some drawings John Lewis shared. However they are for wheels with tires. I have none for the solid cast iron sizes used on the smaller Class A. I do have a Climax drawing of a 28" diameter wheel center (and maybe a 27") with which a tire would make a 33" or 34" wheel depending on the size of the tire. I also prepared 3D drawings if the 30" wheel center used on 1551 which wheel with rim creates a 35" or 36" wheel.

What size is wanted?

It is reported that Climax first used a 36" wheel (with rim) on 70 Ton Class C engines but reduced it to 35" so that a 70 Ton Climax would have more calculated tractive effort than a 70 Ton Shay.

Link to 3D pdf 30": https://s3.amazonaws.com/SIMONTON/30in+Wheel+Center.pdf

2D attached.

1926 Specs. How the ratios etc. changed over time is not known but once A-313 is recovered we will know 1902 specs for a 15 ton.

In the 12 ton the high speed was a 1:1 (25:25) and on the low side it was 15:36.

12 & 15 tons were the same specs.

pinion: 16 teeth 1.5 pitch 7.643 Pitch Diam.
ring: 50 teeth 1.5 pitch 23.879 Pitch Diam.

Therefore a ratio of 1:3.125

From Climax archives via Carl Wassink.

Class A-18, A-22 & B-20 Climax Truck Frame.