Aluminum Frame Members Handed Over to Frank Glatzl

Brought the two new aluminum frame members and one old member over to Frank Glatzl's place in Cedar Park today, along with a graph paper showing the arrangement of the holes for the new frame members.  The new frame members are 7 feet, 8 inches long instead of 6 feet, 4 inches.  And the new frame will have a wheelbase of 48 inches, instead of 36, to allow at least 30 inches between the wheels for the mower deck.  The numerals "22" on the side view of the C-channel below correspond to the relative positions of the axles.  The view of the top of the C-channel shows holes to be drilled to accommodate the new cross frame members, three inches high, needed to raise the mower deck sufficiently to clear the railhead.  And of course all the holes on the bottom side of the C-channel frame members are to bolt cross members and other parts of the trailer.

Here's a detail from the trailer:

Frank is going to do the holes on a drill press, which is a good thing since otherwise it would take me forever to do them by hand.  Plus they will be placed exactly where they need to be and be cut as close to round as possible.  He will also try to straighten the bent frame member for possible future use.

Learned something interesting from Frank about aluminum.  If it has straight edges, like the C-channel I bought, it is "architectural" aluminum.  If it has rounded edges, like the Fairmont aluminum C-channel, then it is called "structural" aluminum.  So now I know to ask for structural aluminum when replacing Fairmont C-channel.  

Meanwhile, I have sent off for a carburetor repair kit for the Walbro carb on the Bolens 1250 tractor that I hope to mount on the trailer.  Am sure the carb will have to come off and get cleaned out thoroughly and then reconditioned.  But once it does, we will have a fighting chance at getting the engine to work.

Stay tuned.

Cleaning up Parts

To open with, here's a photo of what's left of the motorcar trailer as of yesterday's disassembly:

I'm going to reuse the C-channel in the foreground on the underside of the main frame (as it was in the original), except for the long, bent piece, which is being replaced by one of the longer pieces in the background.

The order of the day was laboriously wire-wheeling the smaller pieces off the trailer, including the 52.5-inch steel bumper tube and the second bumper tube, now sleeved with two 13-inch pieces of larger pipe.  Plus I also cleaned up some metal intended to reinforce the mower deck.  This work took about 3.5 hours.  I bent the aluminum wheel guards more or less straight.  Here is everything ready to be primed.  Notice I did not take all the paint off--this is not a perfect restoration, just one good enough to restore the unit to working condition and to keep it going for a decade or two.

And here's the same view after priming this side:

So ultimately they all got primed and now I have to decide what color to paint them.  If I were doing a straight restoration, I'd paint them the original Fairmont orange.  But if I follow that logic, I'd paint the Bolens mower deck red.  With the Bolens tractor I will use being two shades of green, that would be major eyesore.  So I'm inclined to paint the trailer and the deck the same shade of green and do my best to match the tractor.

Will be taking over the new aluminum frame members to Frank Glatzl Sunday afternoon if all goes well.  So the drilling should happen in the near future, then I can put the trailer back together, much improved.

Trailer Disassembled

Finally got the motorcar trailer disassembled today.  Had to take out some 48 bolts, each of which seemed to have been torqued down by some evil genius.  Only tool that could do the bolts on the C-channel was my 18-inch breaker bar with a socket.  But they came off with an audible crack.  Carefully noted down measurements for the holes to be drilled on a piece of paper and then lost the paper (my pit bull was hanging around and I think he made off with it).  But I remember the key items at least.

In the morning I fabricated two sleeves for the broken steel bumper tube.  Then I tried drilling through it so I could put clevis pins through to hold the two tubes together.  None of my drills would cut through.  My teenage son went out to try and reported back "Dad, you had the drill on reverse.  You have to put it on forward to drill into the tube."  Then he spent half an hour helping me drill the holes.  Guess the father-son time was worth the humiliation.  Finished the job and now have a bumper tube that can be put back on the new trailer frame when it's ready.

Bought some bolts for the project at Home Depot.  With weather turning cooler tomorrow and over the weekend, will be wire-wheeling various parts and then priming and painting them.

Starting to Take the Motorcar Trailer Apart

Brought out my socket wrench set today and started to take the motorcar trailer apart, after first photographing it from a variety of angles to document what was where.

Quickly began to bring more tools out, including the hammer, two-pound hammer, sledge hammer, bigger socket wrench, breaker bar, chisel, and lots of penetrating oil.  These old bolts are on really tight.  Every single one of the bolts connecting the hubs to the frame broke off rather than unscrew.  But I made steady progress in the morning until I had to close up shop to go to the office and actually work on a tax return (not much of that work in the off season now).  The frame is now loose from the hubs and I will take it apart tomorrow.  Then will get in touch with Frank Glatzl to figure out when to deliver the key frame members to him to be drilled using a drill press.

Am going to use all new bolts, but will need some new U-bolts as well.  Will recycle the original bumpers (they are 1 1/4" diameter tubes).  They are heavily rusted so I will wire-wheel them and then prime.  One is broken in two.  I was scratching my head about that because it has a collar on one end that bolts to the frame member and I do not want to have to get someone to fabricate that for me.  Fortunately, I checked on my metal pipes and I found one that can fit over the original bumper tube.  So I will cut the two tube segments into three pieces, splice them into the bigger metal pipe and end up with a serviceable bumper on that end.  I can't just splice the two pieces because they are broken right in the middle, and that's where a special mount for the bumper tongue has to be placed with a U-bolt.

Need to decide on what kind of paint to use.  The original trailer is Fairmont orange.  But the tractor I'm going to mount is two shades of green.  Orange and green would not really go together well.  Will probably go with green just to keep the clashing down.

Well, that's it for today. 

New Developments in Mower Project

Wow, didn't touch any of the mower sub-projects (tractor, deck and motorcar trailer) today but nonetheless big developments affecting them.  RPI member Frank Glatzl of Cedar Park offered to assist in drilling the holes for all the bolts in the new frame members since he has access to the necessary tools.  A warm thank-you to Frank for that!  And, I dropped by Westbrook Metals in Austin today and picked up the aluminum frame members to replace the bent and cracked members on the motorcar trailer, donated Dec. 17 by Mike Barnette of Katy, TX.  Here's some photos:

As you could see, the original frame was twisted and cracked at one point, probably due to an excessive load of some sort.  So the first order of business is to replace the frame and add crossmembers on top to increase the height.

The new aluminum C-channel is 1.41 inches wide on the legs, 3 inches on the base, and .170 thick, more or less like the original, except a little wider on the legs.  The two members running lengthwise to which the hubs attach are 7 feet, 8 inches, long.  That is 16 inches longer than the originals, so the trailer will have somewhat greater capacity as well as a longer wheelbase to enable the mower deck to fit.  The cross members will sit on top of the lengthwise frame members to add three inches of height.

The day was also a good one for RPI because I found a gas blower real cheap.  Of course, it's not working but perhaps it will be a cheap repair.  Leland, Hugh Summers and I used the one I already have for clearing out the flangeways of the Llano rail crossings in Kingsland in early October, but a second blower would have been helpful to keep the debris from just blowing back into the other flangeway.

And finally, I bought a railroad crossing sign for my Operation Lifesaver activities.  The one I already have is cracked and peeling and sort of a pain to put together.  The new one is in better shape, and is lighter and easier to tote around.

So top priority now is to start dismantling the motorcar trailer so I can get the original and new frame members to Frank to get some holes bored.  This project is starting to pick up momentum.

Getting Set to Slay those Weeds next Spring

This blog is about my current projects on behalf of Railroad Partners, Inc. (RPI), a domestic Texas nonprofit corporation devoted to preservation of historic rail corridors, rail safety and activities involving railroad inspection vehicles (motorcars) in those corridors.  I work together with Leland Stewart (President), John Pattison (Vice President) and Myron Malone (Secretary) to strengthen RPI.  I serve as Treasurer and I also do Operation Lifesaver (OL) presentations in the Capital Metro service area in Travis and Williamson counties.  RPI has a three-year lease on the Capital Metro Railroad line from Llano to Scobey Spur (about three miles east of Kingsland, TX), a total of 27 miles.  This portion of the line has been declared out-of-service and the switch at Scobey Spur is set for the spur, so in theory no trains move along the line any more.  We RPI members, however, operate on the line to inspect the trackage, report any problems to Cap Metro, fix minor issues, and keep the weeds from taking over.

The weeds have been a problem, especially in the Kingsland area.  I have gone up numerous times to Kingsland this year with a push weedwhacker and cut weeds, so we have made some progress, particularly at various rail-highway grade crossings (crossings are high priority because we don't want to get hit by any vehicles going over the tracks).  But weedwhacking is very labor intensive and particularly difficult during the hot Texas summer.  Heading out of Kingsland toward Scobey spur the weeds have grown so tall that we decided that for our Oct. 30 NARCOA motorcar excursion we would just turn around at the first crossing east of Lake LBJ rather than try to go through them.  That means it is time to do something about them.


Rather than try to weedwhack a mile or more of track that is causing the trouble, I have decided to try to fabricate a mower on a motorcar trailer to be pulled by my Woodings CBI.  The CBI has a variable transmission, enabling the engine to go as slowly as necessary to accomplish a good mowing.  My M-199AA is really unhappy and heats up fast at speeds less than 15 mph, so it just isn't the right motorcar for the job.

I had bought and renovated a Bolens 1455 garden tractor with a front-end-loader and mower deck, planning to use it to mow along the ROW.  I outfitted it with heavy-duty 10-ply skidsteer tires so railroad spikes would not hole them right away.  And I have just gotten the mower deck back from the fellow welding reinforcement plates on it.

I realized it would be a good idea to have a parts tractor so I went down to Bay City, TX, after seeing a tractor that looked just like my 1455 on craigslist.org.  Turned out to be a Bolens 1250, but that was made contemporaneously with the 1455 so most of the parts are identical.  It was in terrible shape, lots of rust, but the engine isn't frozen.

Shortly after getting the parts tractor, I realized that I could take the wheels and the hydrostatic transaxle off it and mount it on the frame of a motorcar trailer, with the deck hanging down in the middle.  If the crossmembers were high enough, the deck would clear the rails by 3-4 inches.  That would cut the grass to a level that would allow motorcars to get through OK and still leave enough of the blades for them to absorb herbicide from a following motorcar with a sprayer.  Once the weeds have been sprayed, that will decrease the problem dramatically.  After two years of regular spraying, we may not have much of a problem as long as we keep it up once or twice a year.

I have done the following to the 1250 tractor so far:

1) Cleaned dirt and grease off all parts of it.
2) Changed the oil in the Wisconsin S-12D engine.
3) Added ATF fluid to the transaxle.
4) Repaired one of the rear tires and added an inner tube to allow it to be towed if necessary;
5) Bought and installed an ignition coil with built-in drop resistor;
6) Installed new spark plug;
7) Fabricated a new mechanism to operate the PTO control rod and unfroze the PTO assembly;
8) Unfroze the gear shift lever;
9) Took a stab at rewiring, using the 1250 schematic, but found two interlock switches not on the
schematic;
10) lubricated every zerk on the machine;
11) installed new fuel hose leading to carb; and
12) lubricated points with carb cleaner.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to connect the carb choke cable to the carb and I suspect the carb is going to need a complete rebuild anyway.  Plus the rewiring has not resulted in my even getting spark, so I have to get my VOM out there and check to see those interlock switches are in the closed position.

I have a small-engine guy who did most of the renovation of the 1455 so whenever he has free time he comes over to help out.  We will see when he can make it over to take the carb off and rebuild it.

One thing I now know is that renovating old tractors costs lots of time and money, but it gives me a feeling of satisfaction to bring some old piece of equipment back to useful life.

I should mention the mower deck is getting work done as well.  My small-engine guy is working on the spindles.  I have wire-wheeled all the parts that came off it and primed and painted them.  If I can get my sandblaster going (some sort of clog in it), will sandblast the deck and then reassemble it with brand new blades.  The deck will be used either on the 1455 FEL tractor or on the 1250 railcar mower, depending on what job needs to be done.

Just went over to Katy, TX, yesterday to pick up a Fairmont motorcar trailer on which to mount the 1250 and deck.  Mike Barnette, a fellow RPI member, generously donated the trailer for this project after I sent out an appeal to the RPI membership looking for one to buy.  I found one up in Canada for 450 dols but shipping was going to be 700 dols.  So needless to say, a donation located in Houston was much less expensive.  I told the wife that freed up a large amount of money to spend on RPI.  I don't know why she didn't seem impressed, it seems so similar to all the savings she has found while shopping.

The trailer is aluminum and the two lengthwise pieces that connect to the axles are both bent.  They are too short anyway, so I plan to buy new C-channel replace them and use as cross-members to increase the height for the platform to mount the tractor.

Lots of work to do, next three days are going to be warm though, so I will try and get things accomplished on each of these areas.  Would welcome help with getting the 1250 tractor engine running, or with using a drill press to bore new holes in the aluminum frame members to be purchased.  I am real pleased with progress to date and am confident the project is going to be out there cutting weeds by mid-March or end of March.  Will keep readers posted on my progress.  Here's some photos of the 1250 tractor.