Identifying Parts

Caution:  Boring content ahead.

I'm sure that a lot of people have found out the hard way, that it's not a real good idea to dismantle a carriage, thinking they will remember how to put it back together without having created a detailed road map as they went along.

Digital cameras make it easy for us to photo-document various assemblies and parts, but when it comes down to re-assembling a pile of iron into a useable carriage, it quickly becomes apparent that lots of these parts look the same, but don't fit where you're trying to put them.

Unless you've given each part an identity, and recorded its identity in print somewhere.

You not only need to know where the part came from, but how it was oriented; what end of the small parts above faced forward?  Which part went on the right side?  Which part went on the left side?

Carriage parts were largely hand made, hand fitted, hand drilled, hand threaded, hand bent.  That means that...especially before castings became widely available, hand made parts fit one place on the carriage, and one place only.

And putting one of those curved parts on backward, means you're going to have to pull it back off and put it back on again, and in the process, tear up any of the surfacing you've done to the parts they're holding together!

 Take, for instance, these hand made iron mounts for the dashboard.  How many differences can you find?  The top hole is round on the left part, square on the right part.  The top edge of the right hand part is more rounded than the left.  The bolt and screw holes are probably not identically placed, meaning the matching holes in the carriage body will be drilled for one of these pieces but not the other.

Look at the asymmetrical curve of this "saddle clip" (yes, it's broken and must be replaced or repaired).  When these things are first made, they are flat, then bent to the shape required for the job.

BTW, in my frustration at having twisted the threaded stud off this part, I forgot to mark it!  I am only modestly certain of where it goes, but have no idea what its orientation is!

Now...Which side goes forward?  Which side faces rearward?  How are you going to know a month from now, when you want to put everything back together!

Springs are sometimes asymmetrical and when the leaves are all separated, you need to get them re-aligned correctly.  How will you do that unless you know which is right hand, which is left hand, and which direction each leaf is supposed to face?

Yes, you need a marking system, and even the most insignificant-seeming part needs to be identified as to its position on the carriage, and its orientation.

When I dismantled this running gear, I used masking tape and a marking pen, but that all has to come off for the cleaning process.  So how do you mark parts?  You can use a series of punches, maybe stamping with a number, anything, so long as it will withstand the most destructive cleaning process you plan to use, such as sand blasting, grinding, paint stripping or wire wheel.

You'll have to devise your own system.  For the longitudinal (facing forward and backward, as opposed to side to side) springs, I am marking individual spring leaves on the underside, FORWARD of the central hole.  One mark for right hand side, two marks for left hand side.  This mark was made with a Dremel tool and a steel burr.

You may recall from a previous post, that I moved two leaves from each spring to opposite sides of the carriage.  Those re-positioned leaves have a mark designating the side of the carriage on which they are now positioned.  This is one of very few times that I would ever reposition parts on a carriage.  The other items I repositioned on this carriage are the rub rollers, to take advantage of the undamaged ends of the rollers without having to replace them.

 This little plate supports the front end of a main spring leaf.  There are four such support plates.  It is essential to know where this one goes because...

It is mated to this saddle clip, and to the holes in the front end of the spring.  There are two holes drilled in the end of the spring leaf.  This clip must pass over the spring bar, through the holes in the spring leaf, then through the holes in the above plate.  The holes in THAT end of THAT spring leaf are probably spaced a little differently than any other pair of holes on the carriage.

 

This is what the bottom side of the four spring end support plates look like.  All alike; all slightly different.

The seemingly identical RIGHT REAR spring end support plate also has two marks, but they are oriented differently.

The above piece mates with a steel spring block, which is drilled to fit the axle.

Other view of the spring block.

And this clip holds the SPRING end (not the REACH end) to the rear axle.

The stacking arrangement (for my information) is: Clip, axle cap, axle, spring block, spring, spring end support plate, bolts.

It is also critical to document the location of individual BOLTS and their respective nuts.  Many individual pieces may be stacked together, all hand-drilled (with a hand cranked brace no doubt, or perhaps a punch of some sort), slightly out of alignment.  Oh, have I ever experienced this!  The bolts holding these parts together are commonly bent especially to snake through these multiple, slightly offset holes.  If you value your sanity, you will record where every bolt fits onto the carriage!  To do this, I just punch holes in a piece of cardboard, run the bolt into it, screw on the nut on the underside, and write the details on the cardboard.

UPDATE!

  The usefulness of the bolt board has been greatly enhanced by using it to identify small parts!















It is extremely difficult for my illogical brain to put together a logical marking system for these parts.  Even as I wrote this, I had to dash out to the shop to look at the still-assembled left side springs to double check my notations.

Anyway, you get the idea.  I'll be using this blog post to catalog all the other small parts as I continue to disassemble the running gear.  That will be for my benefit at reassembly time, but you're always welcome to come back and look.