The Restoration Continues
At this point, the photo quality gets really lousy. The disposable cameras we had been using just don't cut it inside the building. Still, bad photos are better than none at all and I assure you, we won't make that mistake again.
At this point, we knew we could pick the flywheel up and move it around with the chain over the crane boom. The problem was that we would have no way of lowering the flywheel into the flywheel pit because the crane boom was already about as low as it could go. Our good buddy Don Blausey had a 5 ton chain fall and we decided to pay Don a visit. It was already about 8:00 pm, so we were ready to head to town for some vittles and then out to Don's place.
When we arrived, it was just getting dark and Don said he had the chain fall but it was old and rusty and was laying out in the rhubarb patch. He got out his tractor and went to fetch it. It was the biggest and ugliest thing I have ever seen, and I am a bit of an authority on big and ugly! It must have weighed 500 pounds and looked like it was used to hoist the anchor on the Mayflower. Still, it was better than nothing and we loaded it up.
Here is the flywheel laying on top of the foundation. Next we stood it up and slowly moved it into position over the flywheel pit.
Here we go! We used a couple of slings and come-a-longs hooked to the flywheel and tied off to the adjacent engine and one of the building posts so that we could turn the wheel to line it up over the pit.
We didn't get any pictures of us lowering the flywheel into place, this shot shows the flywheel in the pit but blocked up so that we could set the engine frame in place. The crosshead tunnel and cylinder have been removed so that they could be properly cleaned and painted. We used that precarious looking pile of cribbing to block up the flywheel and then we picked up the frame and set it onto the foundation bolts. Surprisingly, everything lined up very nicely. Once the frame was in place, we picked the flywheel back up and then lowered it onto some more substantial cribbing.
Here is a picture of me with the engine, a few days later. We did some spot painting on areas that would be tough to get at once the engine was assembled.
