It is a balmy damp day at IRM. As I get ready for the final day of work this year, mainly to remove the cars’s golf car batteries, I
Batteries Being Removed for Winter
hear a constant dripping sound from the cars in Yard 10. Strange because it’s not raining out. Turns out it must be the condensation caused by the fact that temperature of the cars are below the dew point and thus they are condensing moisture. I realized that this type of condensation is probably quite common causing a lot of exterior damage to the equipment stored outside.
We started out the 2011 season with the objective of getting the roof sandblasted and painted. The last few years, track repairs at Barn 3 have made this impossible. This year was no exception. One of the tracks in Barn 3 had started to lean early in the season. The entire track had to be rebuilt which meant there was nowhere to put the Dyno for sandblasting. We continued working on sealing minor leaks on the roof in the mean time. However, towards the beginning of October, we got word that John Grube was coming back to Milwaukee for a few days and would spend one day at IRM with us helping us get the electrical systems working later in the month. What a day it was. With the help of so many volunteers we were able to make quantum progress with the Enginator, Motor-Alternator and other systems that had been elusive for many years. The kind of experience John has simply is no longer readily available.
Thank you to Chuck Trabert, Larry Kuehn, Gary Olson, John Grube, Buzz Morisette, Mike Baksic, Phil Stepek and my family for making 2011 year of a record progress. The video link below shows our major accomplishment for 2011, the Waukesha Enginator finally works after many man-days of effort by our volunteers.
Starting the Waukesha Enginator