Don't drag your feet!
Needed to figure out where things were going to go before the body was permanently attached to the frame. Electrical, compressor, air lines, air tank, battery, switches, valves and the list goes on... etc. Still had to rig up something for my feet too. At first, some Harley-Davidson pegs that were sitting in a drawer were likely candidates. A better option would be something that would slide in and out and also lock in place. Below is what I ended up with. It bolts on to the front of the tender. If the piping and front truck weren't in the way, they could have been mounted under the frame and out of sight completely. Better planning next time, I guess.
The peg has a round plate silver soldered to one end with a a notch cut out (blue arrow). Notches were also cut out in the bracket (yellow arrows). These notches are used to lock the pegs in place. They lock in 3 positions, closed, open at 3.5" and open full at 4.5". The smaller extension is just in case I visit a R.R. that may have tight clearances.
Here they are locked in the closed position.
Here's a side view. It would have been nice to burry this under the frame but there was too many things already there.
And here they are fully extended. The rods are 5/8" SS. I used 5/16-16 bolts (3 each side) to hold them to the frame.
Also needed to figure out the lighting for the tender. The side marker lights were purchased. The center light was made. Need to work on waterproofing the back of the lights so water doesn't squirt out and still make it easy to replace bulbs.
Wanted to get the tender done so I could steam up the Daylight. I'm getting impatient! Was just going to rig up some temporary electrical for the air compressor so there's brakes when I do get her moving, but I figured time spent now would make life easier later. Once I mount the body shell to the frame, things will be much more difficult to get at. It is "very" tight inside the tender. Other options were looked at, like putting the propane cylinder in another car but I liked the idea of being able to run the engine with just the tender. The cylinder was mounted in the tender by tabs welded to the floor. A pin was used on the front to make it easy to change the bottle. Now that the cylinder was mounted, it was time to squeeze the battery, air compressor, charger, switches, wires, hoses, etc. etc. into any space available. Here's what is looks like so far.
Couldn't find room in the tender for the air tanks so I looked under the floorboards on the Northern to see if one could be mounted there. There was some room but it would be small and a pain to mount. More piping would also be required if I went this route. So.. I decided to use some 2" PVC pipe about 26" long and placed them on the bottom of the tender under the propane cylinder.
Holes were also drilled through the front floor (picture above) where the connection to the propane tank is made. Propane is heavier than air and needs to "fall" out of the tender if a leak ever occurs.
Once everything was crammed inside, I needed to figure out how to turn things on/off from where I would be sitting in an operating position. A couple cardboard templates were made until I found one that works. The plastic piece on the front left of the picture below is the fuse box.
Some 15 gauge sheet was used to make the "switch tray" that is mounted on top of everything. The outline was traced from the cardboard template above. Below shows the metal tray. The red key is a battery cutoff. In order to get everything to fit, the fuse box was move under the panel and a low pressure propane gauge was installed in its place. The gauge reads WC in inches and not PSI as the burners use 11" WC to operate. The other switches are for the lights, air compressor and other things. A digital voltmeter will also be installed at the top of the panel to let me know the status of the battery (the battery is used to run the air compressor for the brakes). A panel will be made to cover this area so they will not be visible during operation.
Been working on the electrical and crammed everything in a 6" wide compartment under the panel above. Even found a tiny spot for the "Battery Tender" to charge the battery (left bottom).
This picture makes it a bit easier to see the wiring. The panel on the right is the underside of the switch panel. The black box at the top left is a 12v to 3v transformer for the Mars light. It is attached to a panel which is part of the battery hold down. I told you it was tight!
Here's the wiring diagram.
Electrical wiring was run the length of the tender to provide electrical power to the engine and the train. In the picture below you can see the electrical plug on the rear underside of the tender with the trucks removed. An air quick disconnect was also installed to make it easier to remove the trucks without having to cut the brake line (thank you Carl for that suggestion). The ball valve with the red handle is for draining the tender. The hole to the left of that is for screwing in the overflow stand pipe.
Here's a closer look at the quick disconnect for connecting the air supply to the tender brakes.
This piece (which I call the tool box) goes under the tender between the trucks. It was made out of 15 ga steel.
Here it is temporarily in place. Still need to make the door and mount the hinges. That can wait until after I get the Daylight steamed up.
The body and frame are almost ready to be mounted together.
In this photo, the body is mounted on the frame and for fit. You can see 2 metal boxes held in place with clamps. These will be used to install a recessed valve handle to supply water to the 2 injectors. There is also room in the recess to mount the tank and line air pressure gauges. The big opening in the front of the tender is the solution I came up with to get the 40lb propane cylinder in/out of the tender. As mentioned in the frame section, it is very tight and I couldn't get the cylinder out without this cutout. A panel will be made to cover it.
Once I get the front of the tender done, it will FINALLY be time to weld the body to the frame. Then it's off to the sand blasters.
