This is the middle gearbox. It receives power from the engine and uses it to turn the middle truck in the drive line. It also sends power out the back to the third truck under the tender.
The problem is that the two smaller shafts are tilted up at 4.5 degrees this is to allow the drive shaft to come into the box after passing over the other axle in the truck. The rear shaft comes straight out the back and back to the third tender truck. The small pinion gears must be positioned exactally in order to line up with the shafts as do the large gears.
In this second pic you can see that the two large gears are lined up close to the bores but the two small gears are no where close. And take my word for it, you can get three gears to line, but that fourth is just not getting in there.
It took me about 15 minutes of trying to get them to line up before I realized that I had "painted myself into a very tight spot."
Just when I thought I was going to need to turn this into a two piece gearbox housing, I got an idea.
What IF.....
What if I make a holding fixture which would hold all four gears in their correct location and then maybe....just maybe.
I won't have to scrap this one piece box idea.
So here's the "solution". It took about 2 hours to make. The small gear's saddle is cut on a 4.5 degree angle and all gears are setting at their correct heigth. There is just enough room to place all the gears in the fixture and orient them independently.
Once oriented correctly each gear can then be slid in toward the center to mesh correctly with the other gears.
Then the gearbox can be lowered down over the fixture and the shafts can be slid in.
Once the shafts are all in place, the fixture can be removed.
And there you have it.
Don't you wish all problems in life were this easy to fix.
