Always good to have videos in this thread! Enjoyed as always.
In other news, I bought 2 future project locomotives today.
I spent most of the night carefully installing/checking my ERR install into the FEF. I'm electrically challenged. I'm proud of myself-it works! Now need to permanently solder/heat shrink the connections.
Basically, I built the tender as an oil burner. Then plans changed to coal. When removing the oil "deck," I got it too hot and the whole front of the tender fell apart. That was quickly followed by nasty words my wife doesn't like to hear....and 3 hrs of soldering.
Since I had to solder the whole front back together, I took advantage of the situation. Drilled holes for the ERR speaker as seen here.
Below: Drilled a hole for the tether to pass through. While at the hardware store, I grabbed the plastic grommet, which the tether wires will pass through into the tender/ERR board. The grommet will prevent wire chafing. It presses into the hole. The masking tape are labels so I can keep everything straight...
Below, grommet piece soldered into tender.
Below: Coal load rough shaped in foam. Will be painted black and 'coal' glued to it. ERR TMCC antenna will mount to foam.
Below: New problem-foam falls through tender opening.
Below: I soldered in brass pieces to form a ledge for the foam to sit on.
Below, underside view. No laughing at my soldering skills, I'm getting better but it's harder than it looks! Especially when things are hard to reach and I don't have a 3rd hand!
My original plan was to put the smoke and run/PGM switch in the water hatches. They were to big. So, I came up with this:
The finished switches are hidden by the coal load and easily accessible:
As if my first ERR install wasn't intimidating enough, it was complicated by 2 rail trucks, and adding a common to the frame. But, it works well now!
Still have to solve a few puzzles to have smoke. Need to make a bracket and decide how I'm going to connect the unit to the stack...I'm missing something, not sure what. But, I can't do anything until a smoke stack arrives. Should be here this week.
I can't begin to describe the amount of time it takes to do some of this stuff. I'm sure I'll be faster on the next one.
No work on the FEF tomorrow, I'll be at Indy 500 qualifying... I hope to get the sound installed this week.
After a major set back, it's starting to come together and I'm excited. I can't wait for the PSC parts to arrive so I can get back to work on the boiler.
More to come!
Heard rumors the VL reefers may be here soon.