# 1946-1947 322 engine



## dooper (Nov 9, 2015)

Hello All, 
I was taking apart this engine, and when I removed the gear case cover on the bottom, I found these two "spacers?".

I have not seen these on my other 322's or 312's with SIT.

Are these common ? Has anyone ever seen these?


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## cramden (Oct 13, 2015)

I don't remember seeing those spacers before. I wonder if they're home made. I'll look later today at my 46 and see if they are there. I'm curious to the need for them.


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## flyernut (Oct 31, 2010)

The only thing I can think of is maybe there was excessive play, east and west, and spacers were used. If that was the case, the gauging should have been off...I'm at a loss.


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## Nikola (Jun 11, 2012)

Saw the thread title and thought "no, the Buick 322 came out in '53".

Oops.


Edit: From the wear marks, they clearly were being used to control end play, so I would clean them up and reuse them.


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## dooper (Nov 9, 2015)

I compared the width of the gear to other 1946-1947 engines I have, and this gear is slightly smaller in width. So, I will reuse the spacers.


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## cramden (Oct 13, 2015)

For what its' worth, I got a chance to look at mine earlier tonight and there are no spacers but there is a fair amount of side to side movement in the geared axle. Mine runs fine so I'm not sure if yours has home made spacers. If they were there then I'd put them back too.


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

Interesting discovery.


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## AFGP9 (Apr 8, 2015)

As a helpful hint regarding spacers, car body panel spacers as well as front end alignment shims come in a wide range of thicknesses and can be made to work to take up end play. You would be surprised at how thin the thickness can be. Body panel shims are much smaller and are my first choice. They require very little grinding to make them narrow enough for locomotive use.


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## flyernut (Oct 31, 2010)

Run the engine without them..The engine is 73 years old, but I don't see the need for them.. After re-quartering the wheel set, and adding the linkage, I spun the wheel set by putting a old armature into the chassis and used my dremel to put some speed to it.. The chassis, to me, didn't appear to need those spacers.. All of my 40 some steamers have a slight movement, side to side.


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## dooper (Nov 9, 2015)

Flyernut did a re-quartering, I refaced the armature, and now it flies around the track with the spacers removed.

Thanks Flyernut!
Al


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## flyernut (Oct 31, 2010)

dooper said:


> Flyernut did a re-quartering, I refaced the armature, and now it flies around the track with the spacers removed.
> 
> Thanks Flyernut!
> Al


Glad I could help.....There were a few issues with that chassis but we got it straightened out.:appl:


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