Lou1985: "I'm curious how many of each run are actually affected by zinc rot. We see stuff here but how prevalent is it? There might be some castings that will last for decades while others crumble. "
Santa Fe, All the Way
Lou, Your answer: all of them.
But let me clarify: the entire run of the affected part, not the run of the complete loco is what would be defective. For example: let's say in 1963 LIONEL decided to run 2,000 GG-1s. That means they needed 4,000 motors, and as we know, the die-cast part, the motor bottom frame casting would be the only part affected. Now, if they kept the molding machines running with contaminated product, or impure conditions throughout the entire 4,000-piece run, well, yup, they're all gonna go!
However, if they made an auxiliary run for the remainder.... those might be okay, again, depending on the condition of the material and the conditions on which they were being molded.
I might add, I've only seen 'zinc pest' on 1963 GG-1s - never [as yet anyway] on the earlier GG-1 models!
-Len Carparelli
