Ruston Shunter update

There were unpleasant grinding noises from the gearbox when the Loco was moving, The gearbox is a huge unit and would be impossible to remove from the loco without special equipment and major dismantling of the loco. We therefor started to dismantle it in situ.

We soon had the reverse clutch disconnected from the main drive and then dismantled. This revealed a badly scored main housing for this clutch and a collar which had become unscrewed and caused the damage.

This photo show the damage. Lucky it seems to have just missed the actual pistons housings.

Those pistons are what pushes the clutch plates together.

here is a picture of the components of the reverse clutch.