Lu Lu 2 - Little Engines Mogul Restoration

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   Well, here we go again! 

On 6-14-09 Phil C and I Tom D pulled the steam loco named LuLu II out of the barn and gave it a good looking over. We also did a boiler test. The boiler looked good with no leaks, so we played around and tried to get it to run on air.  It would only make 1/4 turn on the driver and then stop?

Tim came by and gave me a box with a bunch of plumbing and parts for LuLu and said that he had put new bearings on the drivers but stopped working on it when he started working on his loco. He thought it would run but something was off in the timing? Maybe try flipping the diver? Good luck, have fun and see when you get her running, don't let it drive you nuts! 

I'm thinking I'm never going to buy a used car from that Tim! :)  I brought it back to my shop and started playing around with it. First I flipped the center diver. As she is a 2-6-0 this is the driver that all of the rods go to. However, when I did this, it still did the same thing on air as it did before but now the Johnson bar was working backwards! Hmmm not good.

Next I pulled the #2 axle and pressed the driver off and flipped them on the axle from side to side. I did this to make the drive pin on the right lead, and the Johnson bar work the right way as well. This is the way my Allen 0-4-4 is set up so I figured it would be a good place to start on this one, as I had no info on it. 

Next my friend Rory was visiting the shop and after we finished working on one of his projects we started to play with the timing on LuLu. After talking to Joe M out at the club, he said to look and see if the eccentrics had moved on the axle, as this happens on the LE locos sometimes, which will  throw the timing out. After looking at my Allen we could see that when the Johnson bar is in neutral, none of the links on the loco should be moving. So we put the Johnson bar in neutral and adjusted the eccentrics on the axle till we had just a little movement. 

We put her on air and she sort of ran, so we adjusted the rods on the valves until we got the same amount of air blowing out of the holes for each of the cylinder cocks. 

There was so much slop in the links that Rory suggested we put springs on the links to hold them back one way. After some adjusting, it was running good in forward but still having a hard time running in reverse. Next, I will make a few new pieces to replace some of the badly worn parts on the timing links as Rory and I are thinking that this is why the timing is off in reverse.

For now it was good to hear this loco running and I'm thinking that it should be a fun little loco to run on coal. Yes you heard that right, coal fired loco running at So-Cal!

There is a good size list of fix its on this loco, but I know I can get it done now that we have her running on air. Tom D 

Edited by PhilC - Jul 07 2009 at 10:06am

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tom d Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: Nov 15 2008 Location: lakewood,ca Status: Offline Points: 156	Post Options Post Reply Quote tom d Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Topic: Lu Lu 2 - Little Engines Mogul Restoration Posted: Jun 22 2009 at 12:01am
	Well, here we go again! On 6-14-09 Phil C and I Tom D pulled the steam loco named LuLu II out of the barn and gave it a good looking over. We also did a boiler test. The boiler looked good with no leaks, so we played around and tried to get it to run on air. It would only make 1/4 turn on the driver and then stop? Tim came by and gave me a box with a bunch of plumbing and parts for LuLu and said that he had put new bearings on the drivers but stopped working on it when he started working on his loco. He thought it would run but something was off in the timing? Maybe try flipping the diver? Good luck, have fun and see when you get her running, don't let it drive you nuts! I'm thinking I'm never going to buy a used car from that Tim! :) I brought it back to my shop and started playing around with it. First I flipped the center diver. As she is a 2-6-0 this is the driver that all of the rods go to. However, when I did this, it still did the same thing on air as it did before but now the Johnson bar was working backwards! Hmmm not good. Next I pulled the #2 axle and pressed the driver off and flipped them on the axle from side to side. I did this to make the drive pin on the right lead, and the Johnson bar work the right way as well. This is the way my Allen 0-4-4 is set up so I figured it would be a good place to start on this one, as I had no info on it. Next my friend Rory was visiting the shop and after we finished working on one of his projects we started to play with the timing on LuLu. After talking to Joe M out at the club, he said to look and see if the eccentrics had moved on the axle, as this happens on the LE locos sometimes, which will throw the timing out. After looking at my Allen we could see that when the Johnson bar is in neutral, none of the links on the loco should be moving. So we put the Johnson bar in neutral and adjusted the eccentrics on the axle till we had just a little movement. We put her on air and she sort of ran, so we adjusted the rods on the valves until we got the same amount of air blowing out of the holes for each of the cylinder cocks. There was so much slop in the links that Rory suggested we put springs on the links to hold them back one way. After some adjusting, it was running good in forward but still having a hard time running in reverse. Next, I will make a few new pieces to replace some of the badly worn parts on the timing links as Rory and I are thinking that this is why the timing is off in reverse. For now it was good to hear this loco running and I'm thinking that it should be a fun little loco to run on coal. Yes you heard that right, coal fired loco running at So-Cal! There is a good size list of fix its on this loco, but I know I can get it done now that we have her running on air. Tom D Edited by PhilC - Jul 07 2009 at 10:06am

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PhilC Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Visit Members Homepage Add to Buddy List Admin Group Joined: Nov 03 2008 Location: Torrance Status: Offline Points: 129	Post Options Post Reply Quote PhilC Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: Jun 22 2009 at 1:08am
	*Editor's note:* To those not familiar with LuLu II. She is the actual locomotive featured on the cover of the Little Engines catalog back in the early 70's. It has been many years since this little locomotive has run and it will be nice to see her on the tracks once again. A little bit of live steaming history. The locomotive was donated to the Southern California Live Steamers by Mrs. Irene Lewis, the founder of Little Engines. Edited by administrator - Jul 12 2009 at 11:35pm

tom d Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: Nov 15 2008 Location: lakewood,ca Status: Offline Points: 156	Post Options Post Reply Quote tom d Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: Jul 06 2009 at 8:03pm
	7-5-09 For the past two weeks I have been working on all of the lose bearings in the timing links and in the main rods. All were very loose with too much play, so I drilled all of the holes over size, made some small bushings from some bronze I had, replaced some of the bolts with Allen head bolts, as they had a larger diameter than the model bolts that where in the arms, and a lot of playing around and trying things to get a good fit. I started by drilling out the bearing holes on the main rod. This is not much fun, as the drill can grab so you have to go slow with a dull drill with the binders. Fortunately when drilling the second rod, I found out there were old bearings pressed into the rod. I was able to just press the old ones out and press the new ones I made in. On the last two rods I was able to just press in some bearings I had found at Lowe's. The left side has bearings I made, and the right side has off the shelf bearings from Lowe's. I guess we will see which works best. I put the locomotive back on air, and after some adjusting it was running nice and smooth in forward and would run OK in reverse. I think I can get it a little better when it's on steam. It feels good to have LuLu II running good on air. I am now going to get the old lubricator put back together and plumb it in to the top of the valve box. I will need to make some new check valves to do this as after looking at a photo that Rory had found, of himself sitting on Lu Lu II back in the 1970s. I can see that the lubricator lines go in to the smoke box. It looks to me as though someone took the lines out of the smoke box at some point. Looking in the smoke box, I can see that there's a kink in the main steam line going to the left side cylinder so I will replace that. I have just got to take a lot of stuff apart to get to it? I found some more odds and ends and plumbing parts at the club to help with this project, but there's a good size list of stuff I will have to purchase, make, or rebuild. Wyatt was looking for something to do so I have him cleaning out the water tank in the tender which has proven to be vary interesting. tom d Edited by PhilC - Jul 07 2009 at 1:41am

tom d Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: Nov 15 2008 Location: lakewood,ca Status: Offline Points: 156	Post Options Post Reply Quote tom d Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: Jul 12 2009 at 9:38am
	7-11-09 This week I got the lubricator rebuilt. It was about half way together in the parts box and after digging through the loose parts boxes I found all of the missing parts. Man, what luck! It looks like one of the pins holding one of the piston blocks was too long, hitting the piston inside the block, so I trimmed it back a little. I had to clean all of the parts and got each of the check valves unstuck. I put it all back together and it pumped oil out at a good rate. There was a lot of plumbing lines in the parts box so I laid them all out and cleaned them up. I was surprised to find lines that lined up to go from the lubricator to the cylinders, so I put it all on the locomotive and it all looked real good after some adjusting. I have to make a cap for the fitting on top of the cylinder box. I'm thinking it is set up so that you can pull off the cap and lube the cylinder. I really like that as it will be great to be able to give the cylinders a squirt of oil when starting up or if your out on a run and the lubricator stops working. It will make a great manual backup lubricator. If this works I am going to add it to my locomotives as well. This would have saved me in the past. Things like this are why I like working on these old locomotives as you can learn a lot from how things where done by others in the past. Next I got all of the parts that I could find for the cross head water pumps cleaned up and put on the loco. The pipes for them seemed to be all there, but it took a lot of time trimming, rethreading and adjusting things, but it look like it will all work. It had some neat check valves that were leaking but I took them apart, cleaned all the junk out, and they seem to work good now. I cleaned up the cylinder cover sheet metal, tapped the dents out and put them back on. They cleaned up well and looked great on the loco. I started to polish all the brass, man there is a lot! I'm going to see if I can get some sealer for the brass to try as this will just be too much to keep up with otherwise. I got some white paint and painted the outside drive ring on the drivers, boy does that make those pop out at you. This week I have to order some plumbing parts to replace some broken or missing parts. Some of this stuff is just old and falls apart when you try to work on it. I'm going to add a drain to the tender tank so it doesnt get left with water in it. It is getting closer to that time for a test firing as I just can't seem to go work on my other projects as this one is just too much fun! Tom D Edited by administrator - Jul 12 2009 at 10:56am

tom d Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Senior Member Joined: Nov 15 2008 Location: lakewood,ca Status: Offline Points: 156	Post Options Post Reply Quote tom d Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: Aug 17 2009 at 6:21pm
	8-17-09 Have not had much time of late to work on Lulu as I have been working a lot on the container project, but I did take the head light and stripped off the old cracked paint and repainted it as always. I did a little more detailed paint job on it. I also painted white stars on the driver centers, now I'm working on putting a gold stripe down each spoke on the drivers. I'm thinking I will make a template to do this job. I did more polishing, got the new check valve and water line run for the hand pump. Next I have to make up some new fittings for the blow down valves. Check out the photo below. I also posted it in the club gallery. I am now going to have to start working on my GP60 so its running for all the fall meets that are coming up fast so look for some new posts on that. Tom D. Edited by PhilC - Aug 17 2009 at 9:32pm

Steve C Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Groupie Mr Steam Joined: May 16 2009 Status: Offline Points: 96	Post Options Post Reply Quote Steve C Report Post Thanks(0) Quote Reply Posted: Aug 18 2009 at 6:39am
	That train looks great.