-- Update May 01, 2014 --

Dick has been working diligently on the areas behind the front pilot and has them nearly ready to paint.  We sure appreciate his ability to use a needle gun hour after hour.

-- Update September 05, 2014 --
The main air reservoirs each have two drain systems, a manual valve and an automatic valve that is actuated by the compressor unloader.  Every time the air compressor stops pumping (by reaching 140 psi), air pressure is sent to the control port on the drain valve, forcing the valves to open and drain condensation from the tanks.  As you can see in the third photo, the valves were totally plugged.  Rich has been busy cleaning the rust and corrosion out of the bottom of the lower main air reservoir.  It appears that the tank has not been drained in many years, the result of which is the plugged drain valve noted.

An extraordinary number of hours were put into cleaning the air tanks with needle gun, wire brush and sand paper.  They were covered with road grime, engine oil and goodness knows what else.  But, eventually they were stripped, cleaned and painted.  The final job was re-installing the manual and automatic drains and the new water filler neck.  The left end of the tanks received a newly certified safety valve.

While Dennis steadfastly refuses to allow one bit of old paint,  body filler, or rust  to remain on the hood doors or shutter assemblies, Rich has started working on the cab seats and is putting our bead blaster to good use.

-- Update October 03 , 2014 --
We decided that in order to do the cosmetic work on the rear short hood, it should be removed.  After all, it is only held on by 15 bolts and gravity.  Well, we tried to pick it up with the shop forklift and found that it would not budge.  It was decided that the hood was simply too heavy.  So, we moved the 9010 outside and used our "vintage" hydraulic crane to do the job.  With Rich on the controls, a slight lift was applied and with a "bang", one side of the hood came up.  At first I though we had sheared a hidden bolt but after a good look, we realized that there are 2 locating pins, one on each side, that were frozen in their holes.  After a good shake and use of a pry bar, the hood rose easily into the air and the 9010 was put back in the shop.  The nose was put on the shop floor where we picked it up with the fork lift and set it on stands in front of the 9010's rear coupler.  It hood is now attached to the rear hand rails with planks and clamps so it won't fall over.  We now have a good view of the rear end of the transmission and the process of rewiring the locomotive's rear end will be much easier.

There were 4 areas on the short hood that needed replacement.  This is due to water getting between the internal frame structure and the external sheet metal.  The bad areas were cut out, cleaned, treated with acid and painted.  New metal was cut to size and welded into place.

The number 2 engine hood has been sitting on a cart on the shop floor for nearly 18 months and now is the time to do something about it since the #2 cooling hood is back on the locomotive.  We moved it down in front of the 9010 and then got it off its supporting cart and onto the shop floor where it would be easier to work on.  Dee immediately went to work removing all of the nasty old sound deadening foam.  Dennis and I mounted the last of the old untouched doors to the engine hood.  We did this to check the hinges and make sure the doors fit properly.  These four doors are the last vestiges of the old Southern Pacific paint.

After the oil bath air cleaners were removed, the only engine air filtration was the metal mesh filters mounted above the short side doors in the hood.  There are 6 of them on each side and they looked like they had not been cleaned in years.  I decided to remove the metal mesh from 4 on each side and install oiled fiberglass pads.  These pads will be much more serviceable.

The turbocharger intake ducts are connected to the hood air plenum by 2 flexible bellows.  Between the 2 engines, there was only 1 bellows that was remotely usable so I decide to make new replacements using heavy canvas and my wife's sewing machine.

We also needed to finish the work on the short end hood.  It was positioned in the space that the engine hood just vacated.  We first attacked the rounded surface at the top of the hood.  According to the presence of hammer marks on the metal,  it was originally formed or at least fine tuned over a wooden form.  KM had simply applied a thick layer of body filler all over such surfaces but I would rather eliminate minor irregularities by using a belt grinder and a 36 grit sanding belt.  Next, the hood was given a heavy coat of self etching epoxy primer after which Bill began the filling and sanding.

We got back to work on the number 2 engine hood doors and painted on the first of the "Southern Pacific" lettering.

Painting this time of year (November) is usually difficult because of the temperature.  It can easily get to 35F in the shop at night and rarely gets above 60F during the day.  Polyurethane shoots and cures nicely above 50F but alkyd enamels are pretty reluctant to set up at the lower temperatures.  In order to dry the alkyd paint being used on the inside of the doors and shutter assemblies, we built a warming room out of scaffolding and plastic sheet.  A small electric heater keeps the interior toasty.

Work on the lettering on the long hood is also under way.  This is pretty hard to do because it is located only about 10" above the surface of the walkway but the left side hood was eventually all masked, painted and unmasked.

There are 12 doors left to paint.  These 12 are for the number 2 cooling hood that was sitting on the shop floor.  In addition to work on the doors, it was necessary to repaint the hood.  Actually, the hood has been painted 3 times!  First time was back when we had no idea of actually running the #2 engine.  Second time was after radiators had been installed and some leaks were discovered in the top tanks.  And the last time (I hope) was when I discovered that the paint applied the second time was not a good color mix.  It was so much easier to paint it when it was on the shop floor instead of 10 feet in the air but, you do what you have to do.

We assemble the doors laying down flat and then hang them from our gallows to paint.  They are then transfered to the shop fork lift to mount them on the hood.  While the door work is going on, letting continues.  The letters on the #2 engine hood are now finished which completes the work on that hood.  It will be reinstalled on the locomotive later.