Wednesday, September 19, 2007

The instrument panel


When I put the brake controller back in, I took out the instrument panel and 4 inch duplex air gauge. The panel had been vandalized, the glass had been broken and the pointers removed from the gauges. The panel consisted of a volt meter, oil pressure and water temperature gauge. I bought 2 inch gauges that are pretty readily available. The prime mover type and serial number are also part of the panel. The type is GM which stands for Gas, Mechanical. The s.n. is 13204. I spent quite a bit of time working with the ignition switch. It has 4 positions, magneto on, battery on, both on, and off. This allows you to run a set of spark plugs with battery, coil and distributor, or a second set of spark plugs with the magneto, or both at the same time. This is a redundant system for reliability used on fire engines and expensive cars at the time. I cleaned up the switch but I had trouble with continuity. You had to wiggle the switch on the position to get a good contact. I didn't want to trust that switch so I put in 2 toggle switches, 1 for battery ign and 1 for magneto. Of course you can have both on or both off as needed. I painted the panel like the one in another museum. I put in all the gauges and made a lens for the instrument cluster. I believe the fuse is 20 amp KTK type.
The air pressure gauge indicates the pressure in the main tank and the pressure in the brake cylinder. I found 1 side of the gauge still worked and glued a needle pointer on the shaft. I made a lens for the gauge. Im looking for a working 4 in. duplex air pressure gauge for the locomotive