Heisler Lubricator Construction
Nelson Riedel, Nelson@NelsonsLocomotive.com
10/27/2005, last updated 04/08/2006

The Lubricator design details are at: Lubricator Design I and Lubricator Design II.  Most the parts are stock brass rod and steel plate.  The clutches, gears, hinge and check valves are standard products that were purchased on line.  

Tank: The tank was fabricated while waiting for other parts to arrive.  The completed tank is shown on the right.  The front, ends, bottom and divider were screwed together and then silver soldered.    The tank was tested  with water and found to leak along one of  the bottom edges.   Attempts to seal that leak with silver solder, even after cleaning it in the pickling solution failed.   The next attempt was to seal it with  400 to 500 degrees soft solder.  Several different leaf-free solders were tried and none worked.  What did work very well was a 97% lead-3% silver combination.   The problem was probably that the  gap was too large for the other solders.  The photo shows the tank after it was powder coated.
Lid:  The lid was made from ~ 0.080 steel.  The hinge was purchased from McMaster Carr - # 15665A209 (Unfinished Steel Piano Hinge W/O Holes, .025" Thick, 3/4" Open Width, 3 Foot Length --- cost was $1.19 ).   A recess was milled in the underside back of the lid and the hinge was then silver soldered to the lid.   The photo shows the lid with hinge after it was powder coated.
Tank Back:  This photo shows the back of the tank .  The hinge is attached to the back with three #4 button head cap screws.  This view also shows part of the underside with the 10 holes for the pump cylinders.
Tank Inside:  The lubricating oil will go on the left and the steam oil on the right.  The cylinder extending into the tank on the upper left side holds the fixed  roller clutch.  The clutch is retained by a 4-40 set screw.  The white things in the left rear corner are glass beads from bead blasting.  The outside was cleaned  before powder coating.  Will clean the inside before filling with oil  ---- the glass bead abrasive is probably not a very good lubricant. .
Bearing:   The bearings were the next step.  The plan was to use off-the shelf 1/4" ID - 7'16" OD flanged bronze sleeve bearings.  When I tried to order the bearings I found that the standard ODs for the 1/4" ID bearings are 5/16" and 3/8".   On to plan 2   ----- make  the sleeve bearings  from brass.   The photo shows the sleeve bearings as well as the roller clutch. The sleeve bearings have a 1/2" flange OD and a 1/16" flange width..
Eccentrics.  I've had poor success drilling long straight holes on the drill press.  Have had good success doing so on the lathe.  However, the jaws on my 4-jaw check are too big to mount the 1/2" diameter eccentrics with the required offset.  The next try was the setup shown on the right using a V-Block in the vise on the mill.  The vise base and back surfaces are very close to being horizontal and vertical and the V-Block is also very accurately machined.  The holes were center drilled first and then drilled 1/4".  The difference in the width of the thinner wall at the two ends was less than 0.001" which is perfectly straight for this application. The first eccentric has the hole closer to the side than planned.  The table was adjusted to correct this error before the other three eccentrics were drilled.    This eccentric with the extra large throw was used to drive the two main steam oil pumps for the engine cylinders --- these two pumps require the greatest output.
The photo on right shows the assembled drive train. The nylon gear width was reduced from 7/16" to 3/8"  by cutting 1/16" off the end of the hub.  The diameter of the end of the hubs  were  turned down slightly to avoid interference with the clips on the ends of the clevis pins.
Eccentric Rings:  The rings were turned from the brass rod.  The rings were cut extra wide and then silver soldered to the end of a 1/8" X 1/4" brass bars.  The  ends of the bars were hollowed slightly with  the side of a 5/8" diameter end mill to match the ring OD.  The photo shows a couple rings after they had been soldered to rods.    I held the ring on top the rod until the solder flowed.  I then let the joint cool, then removed the pliers used to hold the ring in place and then reheated the joint.  The ring settled into the hollow the rod end when the soldered flowed after reheating .
This photo shows some of the steps in finishing the rings.  The left bar with rings just after the soldering process.  The rings on the rings-with-bar in the middle have been thinned on the belt sander so that the rings and bar are the same width.  The holes for the clevis pin were then drilled in the bar.  The ring was then cut off the bar and the end rounded on the grinder and finished with a file.  A finished ring is in the upper right and a ring with clevis in the lower right.
Piston-Cylinder-Check Valve: The photo shows three of the pump units.  The unit on the left has the piston connected to the eccentric strap and the cylinder below the piston.   The pistons are simply a length of 1/8" steel rod threaded 5-40 on one end  The cylinder is made from 5/16" hex stock.  The end is turned 3/16" diameter and about about half the length threaded  10-32.   The input ports on the cylinder side are 1/16". The inside is drilled and reamed 1/8" for the piston and the threaded end drilled 1/16" The middle unit has the smaller  MCV-2 check valve that will be used on the lubricating oil pumps.  The unit on the right has the larger MCV-1BB used on the steam oil pumps.

Final Assembly: The first step of the final assembly was to install  the ten  cylinders.  There is a Clippard Buna-N  seal between each cylinder and the tank floor.
This is the underside of the tank.  There is a Clippard Buna-N  seal between each check valve and the tank floor.
This photo shows the bottom with a couple feed tubes  installed.  Recall that there is a bush on the 1/8" steam oil lines to match with the 3/16" compression nut.  This bush should have a shoulder to keep the tube from entering too far into the check valve.  The copper tubes shown are half hard.  The tubes should be annealed to soften before installing on the locomotive.
This shows the inside with the pistons and drive installed.  Note that I wasn't very careful to get a uniform eccentric ring width.  My concern was to get the width that fit into the clevis the correct size.  It was a challenge to get the pistons, rings, etc all aligned and to slide into position.  The top of the cylinders were opened slightly with a countersink which helped a lot.  The pointed ends of the clevis pins interfered with the hubs on the gears and one of the sleeve bearings.  Everything slid into place after the offending tips were ground off.

The pump was initially pretty stiff.   It loosened up considerably after a bit of oil was added and the drive turned with an drill for a few minutes.   

The lubricator will need to be tested before installation to verify all the pumps are working and a pressure test will need to be done of the three steam oil pumps to verify that they can overcome at least 150 psi.  Will come back and update this after the test.

The mounting bar will be fabricated after the locomotive frame has been fabricated and the exact tank position on the frame stiffener determined.   

The lubricator can be set aside until the frame is finished.