Thanks Mark! What was the other site. I'd like to check out the work.
Before getting to work this afternoon (my wife cracks up when I refer to this as "work") I tried to pin down why that E8 B unit is tracking badly. I took the hood off, rolled it across the bridge area and watched one of the trucks binding. It appeared that the blind wheel set was riding off the rail and binding. I then measured everything with the digital caliper. Everything checked out and was within tolerance of the other truck's wheel sets AND the A unit's which showed no tracking problems. I then removed the bad truck and rolled it separately. I wasn't able to actually figure out what was happening but it seemed to be rolling better.
So I started to reassemble. I looked up and saw the dummy coupler sitting on the work bench. What was that doing there? I hadn't removed it. It was there because the casting had fractured and the mounting boss had split in half. I must have put undo pressure on it during the reassembly. Darn!
It's probably not going to ultimately work, but I decided to J-B Weld it back together just to see. I'm probably going to have to spring for a new truck so I might as well try it.
It takes a full 24 hours for this stuff to cure. Then we'll see. It has to support the whole pulling strain of a passenger train up a 2% grade. I'm going to research getting the new truck now since I want to prepared when it fails. J-B Weld is amazing stuff, but there's little surface area here and the excess has to be on the bottom, not the mounting surface for the coupler. I may go back and put and second layer to build up the casting a bit more. The connector screws to the face of this casting and that can't be too fouled by the resin. In looking at my picture, I'm wondering if I can add a washer underneath and J-B that also. It would greatly reinforce the joint. I may have to refit the connector's circuit board so it would clear this. I'll wait till it cures, level off the bulge on the bottom and add the reinforcement.
After all this tumult I got back to building Gravely's. I only got the tar paper roofing on the stair well and built the railing and installed it. For the last month I've been using the recumbent bike and the elliptical apparatus upstairs in our bonus room. Both my wife and I want to lose some weight, but more importantly, I just want to get in better shape so we can go hiking on vacations without passing out. With that, on exercise days I only have a couple hours to work downstairs.
There's little cap pieces that go on top of the railing posts which will go on next session.
