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So I found myself a volunteer position machining parts for a Steam Locomotive rebuilding crew. (Neat puzzle duplicating parts you've never seen before and have no prints for. Hence the handle<G>) The current project is an old ALCo tank locomotive. There are pins that allow the drawbars on the lead and trailing trucks to pivot slightly. They're captive and sit vertically in the harness, which is bolted to the locomotive frame. Each pin has shoulders such that the middle is 3/4" larger in diameter than the ends. One end of each of those pins has a slight taper (say 0.050" in 1"). The other end has no taper. The pins are close to being identical in dimension and seem to be of a hardened material. My question to the universe is: What the devil is that taper for, and how tight do the clearances need to be for it to do whatever it is that it does? I ask because on one end of the locomotive, the holes that the pin fits into are so badly and unevenly worn that I'm putting a bushing in so the pin won't fall out as soon as we get her back in service. At the other end, one pin is a heavy press fit, but using the other gives about 1/32" of diametrical clearance. (hard to get a mike on it- the bolts on that end are frozen.) The prints we have for the locomotive don't show the pins in any sort of detail. Any ideas? I can make a quick sketch to post somewhere if that helps.
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