Pip-squeak rebuild

This weekend I took advantage of the rain and drizzle and hid in the basement shop.  One of the things I did was move some items around so I could bring down my steam engine. 

Then today I started planning the changes I want to make.

My inspiration is this Porter 0-4-0 Mattie for the Tampa Street Railway. 

My story is that a tourist line in the 1920's bought my loco secondhand.  The prior owner used it for a big civil engineering project and replaced the loco with bulldozers.

The loco will pull two cars, both 16' long, the first is the tender / baggage car, the second is a passenger car.

IE I will reuse the frame Unka Jesse had and add a second one.  The first tender will be mostly for water and running tools, the second tender will hold the force sensor for MU plus propane and other tools required.

The list of actions needed to get this thing running again is long, some things will require new skills but for the most part I see nothing impossible.

• One of the biggest changes I am doing is moving the cab back 3 inches.  This means a new cab floor, walls, roof, and the hardest part, mounting to the frame.  Not sure if I will design on the fly or draw this thing up in CAD first.
• Because the cab is moving the throttle and johnson bar need to move back five inches, more holes and parts needed for this.
• I may need to add more weight forward on the loco because of the cab move, This may be in the form of a new pilot, or toolbox, or water tank, running boards, or weight under the frame.  
• The brake lever appears to be able to stay in its location.
• I want to add a better sounding whistle. A Weltek design with the resonator between the steam dome and the cab.  As he is local to the Michigan I may get some consulting help from the man himself, I understand that age has caught up with him and he may not be able to help make the parts.  This is the majority of the new skill area I am talking about.  I have heard many of his whistles on small scale steamers, 1000 times better than the current penny whistle.
• More practical I need to inspect all the water pumps, I bet the o-rings will need replacing, hopefully no other parts.
• I am going to move the water supply bypass to where it should be, just before the boiler, right now the loco's axle pump and the hand pump is starved by the bypass.  One more hose from the loco back to the tender will fix that issue.
• I need to install a steam oil lube system for the gypsy winch.
• Also need to buy some nice braided fishing line for use with the winch, as well as some blocks etc so I can "log".
• I am not a fan of the red and green parts on the loco, the simulated Russian iron boiler wrap is rusty... the loco may be getting a paint job.
• A new link for between the loco and tender, right now it is an oval and while hooking together it slides into the body of the coupler, soon it will be a link with two holes.
• I need to replace or modify the coupler on the rear with one that is compatible with Tom Bee 
• The foot pegs on the riding tender need to be hinged as they are too wide on the truck.
• I need to modify the way I truck this thing around, the draincocks, valve gear, and propane system hang way down.  All my other equipment is held in place with 1x2 rails inside the wheels, that is fine when I remember to throw the bar full forward, but I catch when in the middle and I have less than 1/4" with the loco in reverse.   
• The throttle bar is backwards of most loco's, this is confusing... if it can be changed I will do it so that others will not be confused when running this loco and I wont be confused on other locos.
• Speaking of the draincocks, the operation is not clean, they like to bind up, if I can replace them with automatic it would simplify running.
• Make a water tank, I am thinking acrylic so it has no chance of corrosion.
• Make the tender and propane car look pretty.
• Make the force gauge system so I can MU with one of my electrics.  Yes I am going to make this a steam powered throttle for my electrics, that will increase my pulling capacity with this loco.  My brother already has this for his electric, he can put anything on the coupler, I am going to mount it in this steamer and allow any of our 4 electrics, (was five but Robb tore down his first loco to the frame with no plans to rebuild.)  I may use the motors to upgrade the tugger.  

This is quite a list, many of the items have many small steps to get to completion.  I think I will design the cab in such a way that if I ever do need to replace the boiler I can use the same cab, I have 4 inches of open space to the back where the onboard water tank and wood bunk used to be that is now gone, for now this boiler stays.