Motion Was Dirty – Not Rusty
I cleaned up some small parts of the motion whilst they were still on the engine. Only dishwasher liquid, cold water and a plastic pan scrubber were used followed by a quick buff-up with metal polish.
Look what happened:-
LSTE Motion Cleaned And Polished 01
So it seems that the main reason for the dirty engine is simply dirt – very little rust. At least on the brightwork that was protected by anti-rust protection spray. Of course, the bright parts that couldn’t be protected were red rusty. These were:-
- Handles that were used for driving the engine, like steering/brake wheel handles, gear levers, reversing handle, regulator handle
- Flywheel and Dynamo pullies
- For some reason – the valve gear cover nuts – but that’s another story…
I think one of the main sources for the red-coloured dirt was from a priming incident when the boiler became over-filled and hot boiler water was blown out of the chimney like a hot fountain!
More pictures in the slide-show below:-
Little Samson Traction Engine Connecting Rod Refurbishment
Even more striking evidence that the six inch scale Little Samson Traction Engine was suffering mostly from dirt, not rust, are these before-and-after photos of the connecting rod.
All that was done to transform the very dirty connecting rod shown on the engine before strip-down to the pristine connecting rod in the second photo was cleaning and a bit of metal polishing.
Connecting Rod Before Stripdown for Cleaning
Little Samson Traction Engine Connecting Rod After Cleaning
My goodness, what a transformation! And this cleaning only took a couple of hours.
I’m beginning to think that this refurbishment programme will be well worth the effort.