Ted Sowirka posted:Norton posted:
Well I was wrong but this is what I ended up with. (Smoke unit tilt is a lens aberration)
Have you test fitted the shell yet? I'm surprised that you didn't have to keep the motor parallel to the track! Also, I know there are shorter versions of the Pittman 943x if clearance to the cab wall is an issue. Great work, and can't wait to see the finished product, especially a video of it in operation.
"Creep, coast, and pull. It's not that hard!!"
Ted, I did a test run last night. Had to wait for some of the valve gear parts that were missing. Fairly crude setup in that department.
I hooked up the motor directly to the frame and pickup rollers and powered it with a DC power pack. After a few adjustments to the valve gear I was able to get it to creep along at 2.5 v and .38 amps. I plan to tweak it some more for even smoother running.
Like I said the valve gear is crude and sloppy. Side rods are fine but the fasteners barely clear the rods and want to rub on them. I am considering getting some of the valve gear from the Vision Hudson but will first have to make sure they will fit under the shell which hangs over most of it.
As for the motor not horizontal, wouldn't fit that way in the frame and to do that I would have had to replace the gearbox with one with double worm gears like the Niagara. That would mean two smaller gears and we know how that turned out.
The angle was determined by where U joint on the driveshaft was on axis with the worm shaft. The motor mount was bent until that angle was achieved and checked using the ammeter on my DC power supply. There was a null (minimum current draw) when the angle was optimal. Too much one way or the other and the current draw increased.
Pete
