As touched on before we answered an SOS from the Llangollen diesel group,  in which 26010 was in a spot of bother with some traction motors....originally it was thought to be one traction motor at fault, but unfortunately the problems turned out to be far more serious than first thought.

 

 

Here we see 26010 at the end of my duty on 26043 ready in the shed for a lift the next week, all the traction motors and pipework has been disconnected.

 

 

And finally the next week is here, up in the air ready for the long hard slog to start.

 

 

A general view of Bogie No1 you can see traction motor No2 and No1 in this picture the holes are the bellows connectors which carry a forced supply of cooling air from the traction motor blowers, most locomotives have 2 separate blowers, but a class 26 like most Sulzer type 2s has what's known as a "duplex blower" in that you have 2 rotors on a shaft with 1 motor, this greatly simplifies and cheapens the costs of this type of arrangement since there is only 1 motor to look after, but it does have distinct disadvantages in that a failure will affect all 4 Traction motors, and also duplex blowers live in the engine room, which means all the oil mist and fluids leaking off the engine get drawn in by the blowers straight to the Traction motors, which really doesn't do them any good. the long pole to the far left is the hand brake linkage. the round dish in the centre the bogie pivot point, like all locomotives it sits on the bogie, it is not attached to it, accept by means of pipe work the handbrake linkage and the bellows.

 

Notice how oily everything is, this is because at No1 end above the bogie sit the Vacuum exhauster which when they are past their best leak a lot of oil everywhere. Just ;ike no2 bogie both of these traction motors will be removed.

 

 

A close up of the pivot point, the main mystery is how the leaves got into a completely sealed area.....the pivot point is lined with manganese steel which is very hard wearing and has excellent lubricating properties, the discoloration is where the steel has been stained by the grease, not all around it is the years of road dirt build up.

 

 

The associated pivot on the locomotive underside, this to is in good condition with no scoring and will be regreased when the locomotive is placed on the bogies.

 

 

A moment of reflection  had to be paid at this point to "miss tiggywinkles" sadly perished long ago, but on the plus side....I don't think any basher can come close to the mileage she's had!!! On the left hand side you can see the top of the metalastic bush mounting for No1 Traction motor.

 

 

A top view of one of the reasons 26010 requires its traction motors removed, on the bottom side of the commutator you can see the severe damage caused by the roller bearing failure on the commutator shaft, the whole armature has tilted causing the commutator to strike the bottom brush box, the damage is very severe and this motor is unlikely a candidate for repair and will go into store, its likely a new commutator will be required which requires a rewind of the armature, which will cost in the region of £25k, you can see at the top and the side 2 of the 4 brush boxes, the CP171 traction motors on a class 26 are 4 pole machines, each brush box holds 6 brushes in groups of 2 as can bee seen by the 3 springs, with a total of 24 brushes, the cost to replace the brushes in each motor alone is £1200. The toothed wheel you can see at the bottom of the picture allows you to rotate the brush gear to change the brushes whilst the traction motor is installed in the locomotive.

 

 

Traction motor No1 showing the early signs of bearing failure as indicated by the score marks on the commutator within the brush sweep.

 

The traction motors themselves are not the difficult to extract, they are held in at the front by 2 caps, and at the rear by four bolts on the metalastic bush, they can only be removed with the locomotive lifted and the bogie extracted however. which is a total of about 12 large 1/14 bolts, with another 1" bolts holding a dustcover over the axle. The other item you need to remove is the gear case.

 

 

 

To give you an idea of the scale of the traction motor, you can see myself preparing a stored one to be fitted to 26043, you can see on the rear the metalastic bush, and at the front the right hand end cap which I am removing the large hole is what the axle goes through. At the front of the you can also see the drive pinion.

 

 

And this is one of the end caps the collar on the right indicates this is a right hand side cap, you can see in situ the plain bearing which sits on the axle journal itself, in the centre you can see cotton waste packing, its this packing which picks up oil from the reservoir in the cap and distributes it to the bearing surface keeping things cool and lubricated. The bearing is phosphor bronze with a whitemetal wearing surface.

 

 

A close up of the bearing indicates damage has occurred with some of the whitemetal coming away, this will have to be rectified before re-use.

 

 

Close up of the opposite  bearing which indicates even more damage, this has been cause by poor preparation when the bearing was either manufactured or re-white metalled.

 

 

After everything Is removed the first of 4 traction motors is lifted out.

 

 

The bogie after the motor has been removed, you can see the resilient gear wheel mounted on the locomotive wheels on the right, and the axle with the two highly polished suspension journals, its imperative these are protected so no damage or corrosion can occur, in the foreground you can see the locomotives hand brake linkage, note the two bearing shells on the pallet, each motor has 4 bearing shells (two per side) and the rear ones cant be removed unless the motor is removed, the pallet is there so they drop on to wood rather than concrete which would damage them., you see at the centre the mounting points on the bogie for the traction motors metalastic bush.

 

 

A fully refurbished and repaired traction motor ready for installation when the remaining 3 motors return from repairs

 

from this......

 

 

to this