Last time I finished while I waited for araldite to cure.

The gearbox had its motor fitted and was test run for about 15 minutes at full speed, then low speed and in both directions. All was well.

The rebuilt axle had one wheel mounted and trued in the lathe. Gearbox, gear-wheel, axle boxes etc followed and the second wheel pushed home to gauge.

The chassis was reassembled, but without the cylinders and valve gear, and taken to ‘Bowton’s Yard for a test run. – Locked up solid!

Visual inspection found nothing; removal of coupling rods so only the driven axle was powered, gave nothing; removal of drive train from chassis gave nothing; removal of motor from gearbox gave nothing. Previous frustration was nothing compared to this!

I finger spun the motor shaft and it moved but with some grating resistance. I removed the worm and the driving end endcap, the brushes and springs, and withdrew the armature. Absolutely no sign of damage! The bearings in the endcaps were cleaned with cotton bud and IPA and then lightly oiled. In trying to replace the armature shaft in the non-driving end there was physical resistance ( i.e. not only magnetic resistance). Visual inspection down into the dark recesses of the motor frame showed some object and this was difficult to remove.

It was a bit of magnet! One pole of the sintered magnet had disintegrated. Why? how? – I’ve no idea; but this motor was totally useless.

Luckily I had another in stock so the good bits of the failed motor were retained as “Mashima spares” and the new motor faced the one-hour bench test run while attached to the gearbox and final axle plus wheels.

Test completed satisfactorily the chassis was yet again reassembled san-cylinders and taken to Bowton’s. A few stuttering steps later the whole lot was very close to being thrown across the railway room!!!!!

The fault proved to be that stage 1 gear shaft and wheel again; the araldite had this time not worked for me; the shaft had again shifted.

Drastic measures were obviously needed. I decided on some over-engineering. I had some 2mm nickel-silver rod and cut a length to replace the 2mm silver-steel rod of the gearbox kit. This nickel-silver rod proved dead easy to solder to the nickel-silver side frames of the gearbox. Move again you Bas****!

I’ve decided that the umpteenth re-build of this chassis is now going to be a slow process of clean, check fit, check size, check clearance, check every d*** thing in sight. For a start the shorting wires on every wheel (Gibson plastic centred wheels used in split-axle chassis!) will be replaced, meaning each wheelset will be re-made. My O6 will once again run sweetly – eventually!

Please enjoy your hobby more than I am currently doing,

Dave

P.S.

Two pics included to show the beast in question when it was in more obedient mode:-

Drifting back towards Manchester from Hayfield, the loco is on the sleeper crossing that is part of a local footpath.

Having got back to Gorton and turned, the loco is running light-engine to John Summers & Son's steelworks at Stalybridge and is seen here passing Globe Cotton's mill close to Bowton's Yard.