Mechanical failures...
Well, I've been managing repairs on Old Pueblo Trolley's 1960 General Motors transit coach (Old Pueblo Transit Company No. 135). Last weekend, the starter motor blew up on it. For some reason, the pinion gear failed to disengage from the ring gear after the motor started. That chewed up some teeth on the ring gear and sheared the gear off the pinion. It threw some debris into the starter housing, destroying it in the process.
Fortunately, we have a complete spare drivetrain for the coach and had a spare parts starter. We took the damaged one off on Monday and sent both units out for repair. We got the starters back on Friday and installed the complete one in the coach and tested it on Saturday. It worked all right, but we observed that the fuel pump was leaking motor oil from a relief vent. As the 135 was our backup coach for a event the next day, I could not work on it until the event was over. It wasn't a severe leak, but needed to be attended to at any rate. After the event, I removed the fuel pump and sealed all of the fuel lines and openings to keep foreign matter out. The pump has an oil seal which is probably the source of the leak. One of our other volunteers will fix it at his shop and probably have it back to us this weekend.
We also swapped out the head sign on the coach on Saturday. The head sign is the destination sign above the windshield. Some years ago, our volunteers made up a destination blind to go in the sign box so that there was something there. Next month, the City of South Tucson is celebrating its 75th anniversary and we received a request to have the 135 on display at the celebration. Old
Pueblo Transit was the bus company that served South Tucson. That being the case, we decided that since we have an original destination blind from Old Pueblo Transit, that blind should be on the bus. So I cleaned it up and repaired a couple of tears with tape. We removed the temporary blind from the head sign box and removed it from the rollers. Actually swapping the sign out took only a few minutes.
Fortunately, we have a complete spare drivetrain for the coach and had a spare parts starter. We took the damaged one off on Monday and sent both units out for repair. We got the starters back on Friday and installed the complete one in the coach and tested it on Saturday. It worked all right, but we observed that the fuel pump was leaking motor oil from a relief vent. As the 135 was our backup coach for a event the next day, I could not work on it until the event was over. It wasn't a severe leak, but needed to be attended to at any rate. After the event, I removed the fuel pump and sealed all of the fuel lines and openings to keep foreign matter out. The pump has an oil seal which is probably the source of the leak. One of our other volunteers will fix it at his shop and probably have it back to us this weekend.
We also swapped out the head sign on the coach on Saturday. The head sign is the destination sign above the windshield. Some years ago, our volunteers made up a destination blind to go in the sign box so that there was something there. Next month, the City of South Tucson is celebrating its 75th anniversary and we received a request to have the 135 on display at the celebration. Old
Pueblo Transit was the bus company that served South Tucson. That being the case, we decided that since we have an original destination blind from Old Pueblo Transit, that blind should be on the bus. So I cleaned it up and repaired a couple of tears with tape. We removed the temporary blind from the head sign box and removed it from the rollers. Actually swapping the sign out took only a few minutes.