Pump wagon

Allen

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About 10 years ago, our local antique machinery club was donated a largish collection of steam pumps from the estate of a longtime member. The original plans were to mount them in a bleacher style rack for display. It never happened. Two of the pumps were appropriated to feed the boilers in the steam building. The rest were put down in the tree line and left to the elements.

About 3 years ago my GF Kim and I decided to see if something couldn't be done about this sad state of affairs. We started by painting the largest orphan. (As you can see by the rusty rectangle, some weasel already liberated the build tag
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Now it was painted all purty, but it was still down in the weeds.

When I got the rear manure spreader wheels for my roller from a family friend, I also purchased the front axle and a straight one from a husker shredder. Except, I couldn't get them hauled until this past May.... Meanwhile, the guy who was cutting up the scrap for my friend got torch happy and cut away all the steering stuff from my axle. Grrrrrrrr! I was given another set of steering parts from another scrapped out spreader. They were both McCormick, but from different years. They looked close, but weren't quite right. I spent almost 5 hours making them fit. I needed to lengthen the tie bar almost 4", so I got the bright idea of cutting it in the center, and only making one splice. I then had to graft on the part that holds the tongue since that was burnt off *(and different) as well.... It doesn't look factory purty but it should be serviceable.
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The rear axle needed widened just 'a little' to match the front. Good thing it was pipe, not solid! While I had it apart I welded a 30" long piece of one size smaller pipe inside the axle. In theory it should be plenty strong enough for what I have in mind. (I think we can get 4 duplexes on a 12 foot wagon by mounting 3 of them crosswise)
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A quick coat of red paint on the wheels was just so everybody knew they weren't "dumped junk"
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And that is where the project got stuck for nearly 3 months. To purchase 4x6 wood sills 12 feet long would have been about $60. The club president promised me the club would have a set sawed for me by July 4... they weren't. Then I was promised they'd cut them at the summer show at the beginning of August... they still weren't. So I decided to go another route. Another friend donated me 2 sections of mobile home I beam. He delivered them last Friday. I decided I'd probably better go over and start mounting them today before the scrappies saw them.
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Tramming everything up took a lot longer than the actual welding did. But the end result is that it's within 1/16" of perfectly square. NO dog tracking on my shift!
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This is the first of many braces. I trust my welds. But I also trust some of the guys in the club. I trust that sooner or later somebody WILL hook a tractor to it, rip 'n snort and run it into a doorframe, tree, or other bit of machinery.
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Since it was getting dark I had to stop there for the day. My last project before leaving was to flip the steering stuff over (I'd managed to mount it upside down!) Luckily that was a 5 minute deal. One big bolt from the pivot, a kotter pins at each end of the tie rod, and turn it all over as a unit. By golly, if it didn't fit even better than the other way!

Then we rolled it outside in the rain so nobody could complain it was in the way if I don't get back to it this week....
 
Good girlfriend to get out in the weeds to help paint a cool peice of iron work. I think she is a keeper. Love when the wife gets out to help with a project.

Jeff
 
Uh ... Is it just me? I don't see any pictures.
 
Uh ... Is it just me? I don't see any pictures.

The first one didn't initially appear for me, but after I scrolled up I could see the rest, and now the first one has turned up.

M
 
Good girlfriend to get out in the weeds to help paint a cool peice of iron work. I think she is a keeper. ....
Jeff

Yep, she's definitely a keeper.... even if she was foolish enough to run for club secretary and win. (I've spent all my adult life running FROM office with this bunch. I have very little patience for some of the arrogant idiocy that goes on!)

Rescuing the pumps from the tree line was actually HER idea. When she brought it before the board, several of the directors opined, "Why? They're just junk. Besides, nobody is interested in looking at them."....... SHE told them that since WE were paying for the bulk of the materials out of our own pockets, we weren't ASKING permission, just giving them notice of what we intended to do. Her sass went over rather well, all things considered.

Once they are out of the dirt, a "Kentucky garage" will keep the weather off if necessary.

As far as helping, she claims she LIKES getting dirty. She's fired and run my Pap's homebuilt traction engine for the last 5 years. (A pic of her installing the ashpan before the show)

As for the photos loading squirrely, they're hosted on Photobucket. I think sometimes they decide to be a PITA just to try to get you to upgrade to their paid service.
 
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We had 3 nice days, so I made a lot of progress on this.
I was warned that due to the thin material, mobile home I-beams don't have a lot of side strength, first I added two vertical X braces made from 3/4" Schedule 80 pipe to help hold the beams square. Since the big pump will be centered over the rear axle, I also put on a pair of braces on the outer stubs to help keep it from springing
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There was this angled flange on the rear axle, so I decided it was a really good place to attach a diagonal to help keep the frame from going diamond shape... It looks sort of like a panhard bar.
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Since the axle attach point was a little below the bottom I-beam flange, it allowed me to run the other diagonal flat and tie them together.
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I decided I probably needed to put something across the rear for strength and to help minimize the chances of someone punching the end of the beams through a building.
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I ran out of the real pretty dark blue and couldn't find more, but a local odd lot store had this other "dark" blue on sale for $4 a quart... so far I've used 2 quarts.
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The big pump got brought up out of the weeds. It's 5 feet long, and the wagon is 12....
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I was going to salvage the oak skids to mount crosswise ... but, while they still looked good on top, they're kind of punky underneath. I'll have to see if I can find some used channel.
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Some fat guy at work....
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The wagon itself is pretty much done except for the tongue. It ain't fancy, but it should keep them out of the mud for a bit.
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Since one of the club directors had his big Lull forklift at the showgrounds this weekend to move apple crates, he kindly volunteered to set the big pump on the wagon. (I can't decide whether it's more neat or fugly)


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We also got most of the rest of the orphans up out of the tree line. here's two of them. We're considering leaving the one covered in old crude and sporting mismatched bolts "in "as-found" condition just so folks realize how much work is often involved in restoring this stuff.
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Funny how I finally got the help I really needed to 'proceed' on this project just as the weather went totally to crap....

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Are the pumps going to be rebuilt to make them functional, or will they be just for show?


M
 
to answer your question....
Last Tuesday Ben Midkiff decided we really needed to take a peek inside the big pump before we did anything else. So we broke out the wrenches and started pulling covers. Surprisingly, after a decade in the weeds, not only was it not stuck, but the bores were super oily and clean!
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The steamchest OTOH was full of mouse nest. It will probably need the valves lapped, but for now we just scooped the crap out and poured oil all through it.
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The pump bores were full of something that might once have been kerosene. Impact marks showed that the rod on this side was hitting the cylinder head, so I removed about 1/8" off the end before closing it up. Hopefully that will cure the problem.
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The pickup pipe was packed solid with chipmunk leavings. More scooping and oiling.

Then we coated all the studs with anti seize shtuff and put it back together.

For those curious about such things, the steam cylinder bores are 7-1/2" the pump bores are 4-1/2"- making it a fairly high pressure pump - and the stroke is something near 8". The pump is obviously set up to pump oil (solid pistons with iron rings)... and should be easy to get completely operational...

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Micro update: Yesterday afternoon was fair and balmy, so Kim and I went over to do "something". That something consisted mostly of drilling holes. I made a linkage for the hand pump on the roller, hitch plates for the wagon tongue, and stole the heavy channel out from under the green pump for the larger crusty one...
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I also smoked my 3YO Skil angle grinder.... well, slightly more than "smoked". It decided to suddenly belch 6" green flames out of the motor vent holes and seize up.... back to my 15 year old Hitachi, I guess.

We also measured the oil tank, it's 21" and so are the I beams under it. The space between the sill webs is 27" (and it needs to straddle one of my braces), so....... I'm thinking of using 2" pipe, since it's what we have a bunch of, but it's going to be rather FUN to get those tank channels to set exactly on them (The tank has about 15 gallons of used motor oil in it, so it's kinda heavy, too )
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On the down side, while the weather is supposed to be still good for this kind of outdoor work early next week, I'm nearly out of 1/8" welding rod (about 4 sticks left) and the 1/4" 6010 I've got left would just blow through in a few seconds... (I've got some spare #40 and # 60 sprockets and a 3/4" parts injector up on fleabay, but no there's guarantee that anybody will bid. Other than that, we have no money coming in until the 3rd -- You sorta get used to being "poor", but "flat-assed broke" is still really, really inconvenient!)

At least I now have all the parts I need for the tongue, and they don't need welding. That's tomorrow's project since we have to go over for the election meeting anyway.

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