Diesel Locomotives of the GSL

[De Bruin]

In a holding pattern on my LWS u-boat project waiting for a AN drive to appear on E-Bay, so back to working the OOS line for the Atlanta club, starting this topic to compliment the GSL steam thread.
First up; an older Key E-7, a deviation from most of the Club’s power roster in that it’s a (relatively speaking) newer import and not a doorstop, primordial Max Gray/USH or PRC twinkie.

Nice looking unit, though owner was dismayed to discover upon receipt that the unit was not the “clean” car body versions the CG had (10 ea,) having numerous added car body vents across the middle side panels actually resembling the L&N’s version, more so it didn’t run either despite multiple repair attempts.
So this was new ground for me as Keys, even “old” ones like this are “rarified air” if not a different planet from my experience.

Obviously the drive is a little ……busy. The original culprit was alledgedly the large clutch slipping, it had been fused in essence making it another flywheel which in turn created enough mass in the drive to cause the motor tube to slip. At least that’s my theory (ahem like dinosaurs, big around in the middle and skinny on the ends)

Question to our resident drive bards; is this a stock Key drive circa early 1990’s? or do you detect some “fiddling” ? (fused clutched aside)
Pete

[Erik C Lindgren]

Oh that's nice!

[bob turner]

I love the paint. One of my favorite Diesel paint schemes.

[up148]

Jim, thanks for posting. I've never seen one of the early KEY's uncovered and they are incredibly busy inside. The yellowing tubing looks similar to models from the 70's and early 80's, but the clutch drive is a new one on me as well as this unique (to me) way of incorporating the flywheel. Is this a stock KEY drive? All I can say is wow, someone really thought this one out and hoped to deliver the closest thing to prototype operation, before DCC.

Jim, is there any info on the box label that helps to identify the year of import. Erik, can you shed some light on the year of import or the import run? Jay, are you out there???

As always, KEY paint jobs are a knockout.

BH

[Chris Webster]

Question to our resident drive bards; is this a stock Key drive circa early 1990’s? or do you detect some “fiddling” ? (fused clutched aside)
Pete

Could it be a Klienschmidt drive? Some of the components look similar to parts used in this OMI RS11 that OGRforum posters identified as having a Klienschmidt drive.

[E7]

If it is EARLY Key, it was built by Samhongsa, and will have that stated on the end of the box lid. It looks like a Samhongsa unit to me. Can't comment on the drive as I've never seen one of them opened up.

[De Bruin]

OK, well... no box, so no way to verify based on that. I am pretty sure it is an early Key unit but like everyone else so far I have not seen the guts either before so.....
Agree, it does have some Samhongsa characteristics, enough to make me think "Overland on steroids" as I was disassembling it.

Chris, sharp eye there; the RS11 in the photos in the OGR string have to my eye the exact same clutch, center and flywheel reduction towers albeit in a different arrangement.
I can tell you the axle gear housings are stock Key and not those unusual (to me) "tight" round housings on that RS11's axle gears.

This E unit did have a noticeable intermittant squeal due to an inner brass tube sleeved into the delrin tube, a stop-gap to keep the tube from twisting (otherwise a guaranteed fail drive wise)

Butch, .....again I'm not Jim

Pete

[webenda]

Yes!

[Jay Criswell]

Having worked on many of these I will vote for it being one of Stu's. Cool to look at but impossible to make run satisfactorily. Gregg L. had a similar drive and we spent many days trying to get it adjusted/tweaked. Bottom line, cool looking components but not really satisfactory execution.

Jay

[Jay Criswell]

Well crud, should have read the entire thread before mouthing off.....Gregg, and his drive, was already covered. This what happens when I reply at 4AM.

Jay

[herronpeter]

Jay, I have to agree with you about the "Stu Kleinschmidt drive", which in my humble opinion is a great idea that does not work (unless you like to pull heavy trains at speed). Switching, forget it. I acquired a BL2 with this drive in it and while lovely to look at, was impossible for me to get to run slowly with the few cars my layout will handle. I tried a decoder and it was worse as the poor decoder's BEMF circuitry could not keep up and went crazy with all the changes it detected when the clutch would engage and disengage! I tried locking the clutch (with a piece of cloth so as not to damage it) and I had a locomotive that went from a stop to 6 smph in a blink as it was a 1 to 1 drive. I even tried what I thought was genius-I added some of that Sticky Lube the RC car guys use in their differentials-slightly better but still jerky getting going. I cleaned out all the lube and reassembled it and returned it to the seller for a refund. Have since acquired another BL2 with the stock OMI tower and flywheel drive and it runs like a watch. Unless OMI produced an earlier run of BL2's with their poor tank drive, I can't understand why the new drive was installed in the one I originally got.

Live and learn.

Peter

[E7]

OK, well... no box, so no way to verify based on that. I am pretty sure it is an early Key unit but like everyone else so far I have not seen the guts either before so.....
Agree, it does have some Samhongsa characteristics, enough to make me think "Overland on steroids" as I was disassembling it. Pete

Pete, FWIW, The O scale Overland EMD diesels have a separate "ring" or "bezel" at the end of the nose where the headlight lens is. The nose/hood on the Samhongsa/Key engines is all one piece.

Rich

[up148]

Butch, .....again I'm not Jim

Sorry, Pete, wasn't thinking. After posting this morning I thought about the drive and came to the same SK conclusion. Nice installation, but looks aftermarket and no O scale production model diesel from the 80's or 90's that I owned or saw looked like this or was this complicated. So, you have some very interesting piece of history there.

Butch

[De Bruin]

It’s ok Butch, happens all the time; thanks to all for the input, again Chris for the OGR link to the RS-11 string; I have long heard of Kleinschmidt drives but’ve never actually seen one ‘au natural. The locomotive actually belongs to David Payne of the downtown club who is a dedicated Central of Ga and Southern modeler, and again he's disheartened with this unit's visual inaccuracies relative to the actual CG #810, perhaps knowing he has a Kleinschmidt drive will cheer him up but I doubt it.
So again, with the clutch officially “fush-itsa” having been internally fused; my consulting engineer advised me to discard it and move the mount in toward the tower and reconnect. I was considering using a u-joint and ball per Wayne’s overly complicated photo diagram, but we concluded that of all the options, the path of least resistance was another piece of tubing, albeit the more substantial “fuel line” variety already in use here as opposed to the black delrin.

The only “tall pole” for me was drilling a 90 degree hole in the Sagami shaft, something I’ve never actually done before but having recently acquired a small, second hand drill press from the club went for it. I’m sure you guys are laughing now; but definitely a learning experience. I built a drilling jig out of steel bar stock, with a shaft diameter hole intersected 90 degrees with a smaller one for the pin or screw. Even with the jig the going was very slow; lots of broken bits, interestingly cheaper carbide bits were more effective than the pricier titanium and alloy bits, which basically just polished the hole until they shattered. Think a large part of the problem was the “slop” in the small drill press’s shaft, having had considerable use before I got it. Eventually though success; per Jim’s suggestion I used a cotter pin rather than attempting to tap that Sagami shaft, and it works fine. The angle mount was fortunately slot drilled for the motor screws so between that and the final base screw I was able to align the respective shafts better than what you see in the above (important)

Very smooth, quiet, no vibration and excellent slow speed. Most gratifying as I’ve been reliably ineffective fixing drive issues like this until now, so I’ll say having a drill press has proven far more valuable than I anticipated, something Bob advised me a few years ago when I queried the forum on what machine tools you guys deemed were most important in building AN and CLW’s. (as in duh!) Anyway, after a lengthy test run on trackworld, it' back to revenue service on the GSL, which will average about 30 minutes of operating time a month.

[bob turner]

So Pete - I kept waiting to hear you painted it. This is something Key did? It is a beauty - the inaccuracies would not bother me at all.