Turtle Creek Timber picks up a nice engine

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malletman

malletman

Alcohaulic
Was at the Wheaton IL train show again this weekend, there was a guy liqudating a collection of trains, both plastic and brass at super blow out prices. Had a mint in the box PFM 2 truck climax for $250 but I didnt have that much cash on me, I did pick up an unbuilt Kaydee disconnect log car kit for $15. He had lots to unpack yet so I went back over and helped my buddy unload the van and set up his tables of trains for sale. As we got finished up, I noticed quite a crowd over at the table where I saw the Climax. I went back and looked over what was now on the table, there was the saddest looking, whooped on 2 truck PFM Climax I had ever seen, both eccentric cranks were broke off, just needed resoldered, one valve gear hanger was off and laying in the box, and it was painted with what looked like latex paint and lettered for the "snafu" railway! He had it marked $55 bucks, the guy looking at it passed on it and handed it to me, I offered the guy $30 and it was mine. She was so embarrising looking, I didnt take pics of her when she entered the back shop around midnight yesterday. I put the shell, bare chassis and bare truck assemblies into my carb cleaner can to eat the paint off of them. I know it wont harm the brass or solder as I clean mower carbs and floats in it. After a couple hours at the kitchen sink cleaning, she was shiny like new again. I cleaned, fluxed and resoldered the eccentric cranks back onto the flywheels, relubed the gear drive and trucks, polished the brass wheels and did a little fine tuning. Runs pretty good, a bit stiff right now. I will take a pic or two later this evening, the clear coat is drying right now. I couldnt make myself repaint it back to black for my logging line, just to good looking in shiny brass. She should make a good heavy road engine for my logging line, I have ran out of traction a few times with the 24 ton shay a few times switch out at the local club. For the hot and humid weather, along with back to school bills, my buddy did very well sales wise, as did many dealers. Cheers Mike
 
I should have a pic here in a few min to post. It was an incredible deal, IF, like me one was able to repair the damage and remove the horrible paint job. There are several guys in our club that are just terrified to take a brass engine appart, let alone repair a damaged one. I have my limits of what I can repair, mainly due to lacking a few tools and a good resistance soldering iron. My high temp Weller Electronics iron does good for some repairs, its quite a bit hotter than the normal irons and controls its temp within .01 degree of its setting. Most of the brass he was selling was a steal. I almost bought the PFM USRA light pacific, but wasnt sure if I could come up with drivers and bearings, they were missing and the engine was in total pieces. Was cheap enough if one had the means to repair it, $45 bucks. He also had a horribly painted PFM C3 three truck flywheel shay, but it was missing the 3rd truck under the water tender, and those are very different than the later PFM shay trucks so I passed on it.
 


Pic time, not the best but its late. Enjoy! Mike
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Wow, some work and $30 and you've got yourself a beautiful engine. Why don't I ever find deals like this?
 
Incredible! You did good! I cant wait to see you get in and out of the shop! That puppy looks sweet! Keep us in the loop when ya get her in service post some pics...very nice!
 
That is the after shop, it was horribly painted, had broken valve motion on both sides. It still needs a bit more tinkering as its quite stiff still when it runs. I am thinking about sending the wheels off to get nickle plated as they are bare brass on this model. Why PFM didnt plate the wheels on the early Climaxes is beyond me, everything else they were doing were plated. This one is late enough run wise to have all last wax casting detail parts, so you would have thought the wheels would be plated. Mike
 
I tried running at the local hobby shop but with brass wheels and only 4 wheel pickup, combined with the crappy bachmann easy track, it didnt work to well. That has to be one of the worst track products on the market in my book, give me Atlas snap track anyday! Anyhow, I added 8 wheel pickup today and hardwired everything, as built the front truck on PFM/United geared engines rely on the bolster contact to transmit power, I add a wire soldered to the truck and chassis to suppliment that pickup point. Tonight at club it ran really good, finaly started loosening up a little bit by the end of the operating session. At the beginning, after a decent run in forward direction (which had been the stiffest direction), the motor would heat up enough to really need lots of throttle to get it to restart that direction again. After cooling down it would be fine. Buy the end of the evening, it wasnt doing this as much. It was also running much cooler. Only thing I can think of is oil varnish on bearing surfaces that I couldnt take appart, polish and relube, so the new lube had to work its way into the bearings and polish them up. Now I need to sell some of my Great Northern brass engines so I can buy a second Climax engine. I know it wont be near as cheap as this one!! But neither was my Hillcrest shay. Cheers Mike
 


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