As many of us know, 40, as well as 43 and 45, have all had door issues in the winter. Some have had these problems in the summer even. The quick fix to get the doors to open and close with enough power, has been to jumper out some of the resistance, to give the motor more power. Well the last night of PEX one of the door suffered a situation, where even with the extra power we were giving the doors, on set on 40 did not quite open all the way. This caused the motor to continue to try to push the door open. Eventually the heat generated, caused the motor to smoke, quite a bit. For now it seems the motor is workable, but it definitely did not help it's overall health.

This weekend Fred took a long time to help us diagnose the root cause of this issue. THE FLOOR! The doors are sweeping all over the raised floor. The floor is raised, and rising, due to the plywood under the rubber flooring swelling with water. At first glance it didn't look like a big deal, but upon further careful inspection, it can be seen that the blinker doors are riding all over the floor at the threshold area. There is a seam there, and water entry over the years swells the wood. This extra friction caused the doors to simply not work correctly. So we cut out the section of flooring that was the worst, and retested the doors. With NO JUMPER IN, and NO EXTRA POWER given to the doors, they worked very nice. I was amazed!

So since we now have on hand many rolls of the correct rubber flooring, the door vestibules on all the cars will getting removed and replaced. Keep your fingers crossed that this will bring an end to our fussy doors!

We are going to need some help pulling these floors out, so if anyone would like to join in, please let me know directly.

Jeff

Jeffb60md@aol.com