Heljan Churchward Mogul in 7mm scale

[steve fay]

They fix to the tender fairings there’s a little recess for them to fit in. 
they are for holding in place the weather sheet 

[brossard]

On 14/04/2019 at 01:23, neal said:

Just a note that the additional guidance for body removal posted on the Towers site fails to spot the third tender top screw which is located to the o/s rear corner, tight to the buffer beam.

 

Once removed, the top comes off easily, however be careful as the tender weight is sandwiched between chassis and body, and is loose when the top is removed. The front tender handrails are the only fiddly issue, these fit into holes on the tender footplate. Caution as these are plastic.

 

Decoder fit is straightforward, I stripped out the Loksound socket for a Buddha chip.  Compared to the Prairie, the cables are very fine.  

 

Firebox flicker board peels away from the socket and can be wired into aux function terminal at default output.  This works fine, but is a little yellow for my taste. I hadn’t made this connection on my Heljan Prairie, however having done this on the Mogul, I cracked the tank engine open again and got this feature working.  I also took the opportunity to lube the gear set.

 

The Mogul Runs beautifully on DCC as DC.

 

Neal

 

My friend tells me his Mogul is on the way.  Does the model use a regular DCC sound decoder (my preference is Zimo MX645, I have this and the MX644D in all but one of my locos) or will it require a larger decoder?

 

John

 

Thanks.

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi John, the Zimo chip can be fitted but needs an adaptor board. Have a read here:

 

https://www.youchoos.co.uk/Index-Resource.php?L1=Guides&Item=HeljanOMogul

 

Cheers, Ade.

[brossard]

Thanks Ade, I did not know that.  The loco speaker install looks good and the tender speaker looks interesting as well.  I didn't see anything about a decoder adaptor board though.

 

Edit:  having another look at the page, I see mention of "ADAMTC".  Is that the adapter board you mean?

 

John

Edited July 21, 2020 by brossard

[Adrian Stevenson]

That's it. You got it.

 

Cheers, Ade.

[21C123]

Hi all

 

my mogul arrived today, with the usual DHL & NZ customs delay.

 

unfortunately it limps while going backwards and jams going forwards....

 

it almost looks like a split gear such as my hymek had.

 

before I begin the painful task of returning it does anyone have any suggestions as to what might be wrong ?

 

thanks

 

Roger

 

 

 

[Hal Nail]

Rails of Sheffield have some of these at £450 and free postage now.

Edited November 27, 2020 by Hal Nail

[Chris Dark]

On 06/07/2020 at 08:15, steve fay said:

They fix to the tender fairings there’s a little recess for them to fit in. 
they are for holding in place the weather sheet 

Has anybody got a picture of where the recesses are? i can't for the lift of me see the location.

[GWR57xx]

On 27/11/2020 at 20:56, Hal Nail said:

Rails of Sheffield have some of these at £450 and free postage now.

 

I succumbed to a "Great Western" version at £545. 

 

 

Has anyone fitted one of these with the Loksound V5 L decoder? Whose project and which speaker did you use?

 

I have no preference between Zimo and Loksound at the moment, and since the Loksound V5 L is a drop in whereas the Zimo requires some rewiring I thought I'd take the easy route.

 

I've found a few sound options for the Loksound: 

DC Kits (Wheeltappers), which might be recorded off an actual 43xx?; I guess not, as 5322 (the one at Didcot) "was withdrawn in Summer 2014 with boiler problems" (from the GWS website), and 9303 (from the SVR) is in store.

Digitrains (Engineman), using either the Manor or Hall projects;

SWD (?), using their generic "GWR Group 3 Locos" project.

 

Would anyone  recommend any of these, or any others?

Thanks.

Edited December 8, 2020 by GWR57xx
Sadly no operational 43xx's

[Hal Nail]

On 07/12/2020 at 11:49, Chris Dark said:

Has anybody got a picture of where the recesses are? i can't for the lift of me see the location.

 

I would happily have obliged except I cant either!

 

Can anyone tell me which screws release the loco body please - i assume its the ones down the centre of the chassis and those towards the edge retain the chassis base plate? Usually I would use trial and error but its not the easiest thing to mess about with, handicapped as I am with just the 2 hands.

Edited December 8, 2020 by Hal Nail

[Adrian Stevenson]

5 hours ago, GWR57xx said:

 

I succumbed to a "Great Western" version at £545. 

 

 

Has anyone fitted one of these with the Loksound V5 L decoder? Whose project and which speaker did you use?

 

I have no preference between Zimo and Loksound at the moment, and since the Loksound V5 L is a drop in whereas the Zimo requires some rewiring I thought I'd take the easy route.

 

I've found a few sound options for the Loksound: 

DC Kits (Wheeltappers), which might be recorded off an actual 43xx?;

Digitrains (Engineman), using either the Manor or Hall projects;

SWD (?), using their generic "GWR Group 3 Locos" project.

 

Would anyone  recommend any of these, or any others?

Thanks.

 

I will be able to advise you in a few days, as I have a Loksound one coming from Charlie at DC kits.

 

Cheers, Ade.

[GWR57xx]

2 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

 

I would happily have obliged except I cant either!

 

Can anyone tell me which screws release the loco body please - i assume its the ones down the centre of the chassis and those towards the edge retain the chassis base plate? Usually I would use trial and error but its not the easiest thing to mess about with, handicapped as I am with just the 2 hands.

 

Does this help?:

http://www.tower-models.com/towermodels/ogauge/Heljan/locos/43xx/RW_disassembling guide_43XX.pdf

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by GWR57xx
jpeg added

[GWR57xx]

50 minutes ago, Adrian Stevenson said:

 

I will be able to advise you in a few days, as I have a Loksound one coming from Charlie at DC kits.

 

Cheers, Ade.

 

Thanks Ade, that's brilliant. I'd better get mine run in...

I thought you'd put a Zimo in yours, or was that a different engine?

 

BTW, as well as the cab wind sheet tie-down struts there are also another couple of little items in the accessory pack, but no mention of them in the enclosed leaflet. Any idea what they are?

Cheers,

Peter

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Peter, I have Zimo in most of my locos, but could face all the wiring needed to use one in this engine. Plus they are out of stock of the PCB needed to convert it to a Zimo chip. So plug and play it is!

 

If I recall rightly one item is the ATC shoe.

 

Cheers, Ade.

[GWR57xx]

3 minutes ago, Adrian Stevenson said:

If I recall rightly one item is the ATC shoe.

 

Cheers, Ade.

 

That makes sense. Thanks.

[21C123]

5 hours ago, GWR57xx said:

 

Does this help?:

http://www.tower-models.com/towermodels/ogauge/Heljan/locos/43xx/RW_disassembling guide_43XX.pdf

 

Hi

 

On the tender there is also a screw behind the right hand buffer, which isn’t marked on that photo....

 

Roger

[GWR57xx]

Put 4339 on the rolling road to run in on DC.

Wasn't sure this would work because my DC controller is a very old Gaugemaster D rated at 0.8A max that I had for my N gauge layout.

Very pleased when at 50% throttle the wheels started to turn nicely. OK in both directions.

Left it running in reverse and it was fine for a couple of minutes and then stopped with a nasty graunching sound, so immediately cut the power.

Heart in mouth I decided to follow the instructions above to access the motor.

As well as the cab handrails and front end struts, the instructions fail to mention several other bits that promptly fell off when removing the cab (whistles, reversing lever, cab mounting block, another piece that I have no idea...).

The cab doesn't slide backwards easily - the locking lugs almost broke before it moved.

The boiler doesn't slide forwards easily either - needs a bit of careful wiggling of the motor mount and boiler to ease it forwards.

However, once apart I could see that the motor wasn't properly held in place in its mount, and was able to nod up and down at the cab end sufficient to disengage from the drive gear to the wheels.

The motor is held in its mount by two tiny arched brackets. The arch is only half the width of the bracket, to engage with a slim raised ring on the motor. It appears that the bracket at the cab end had been screwed in the wrong way round, so the arch wasn't pressing on the motor ring.

I also took the opportunity to test the motion and was pleasantly surprised to find it freewheeled exceptionally freely. No binding whatsoever.

Putting the motor mount back on the chassis you have to be very careful about routing the four tiny wires to avoid fouling the drive gears and avoid trapping them under the mount. Also make sure that there is no visible gap between the mount and the chassis, otherwise the gear mesh will be compromised.

There appears to be a space for a speaker in the chassis but I don't think it's wired and it's not easy to access, so I think the speaker will be going in the tender. 

Not looking forward to getting this all back together.

 

edit: oh, and whoever applied the grease missed the gears completely, so I removed most of it and added a tiny bit to the gears. There wasn't much in the first place, which makes a difference from most reviews of other locos that I've read recently.

Edited December 9, 2020 by GWR57xx

[GWR57xx]

Correction: I may be wrong about the loco speaker - the mini connector between loco and tender has six wires. Two of these are to the motor and two are to the firebox flicker led, so the other two may well be for the speaker.

That's for another day - I'm stressed out enough for now!

[GWR57xx]

I think the other little bits in the accessory packet are heavier motion retaining brackets (above the footplate) for the later builds (5390 onwards I think). OH NO THEY AREN'T!! (see below).

 

It would have been nice if Heljan had supplied some details about fitting the accessories, fitting speakers, dismantling the loco etc, rather than leaving it to the buyer to figure it out. I don’t think that’s asking too much?

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by GWR57xx

[Hal Nail]

43 minutes ago, GWR57xx said:

I think the other little bits in the accessory packet are heavier motion retaining brackets (above the footplate) for the later builds (5390 onwards I think).

 

I don't think so - not the right size or shape.

 

I'm intending to do that conversion using 61xx spares but it also involves altering the drivers side splashers and reversing lever arrangement.

 

Edit - and it involves taking the body off and I'm having second and third thoughts about that at the moment!

Edited December 9, 2020 by Hal Nail

[GWR57xx]

 

On 09/12/2020 at 16:36, GWR57xx said:

I think the other little bits in the accessory packet are heavier motion retaining brackets (above the footplate) for the later builds (5390 onwards I think).

 

 

On 09/12/2020 at 17:16, Hal Nail said:

 

I don't think so - not the right size or shape.

 

 

Yes, you're right. Nothing like... 

So I have another theory.

The bits have two locating studs on them, so I examined the tender and loco to try to find corresponding holes to insert the studs in.

Found them - they are the inside front ends of the cylinders. I suppose Heljan left them off to allow the engine to traverse set track curves, so if you don't have such curves on your layout I suppose it's safe to fit them.

Not sure I would have ever noticed the cylinders weren't complete from a typical viewing angle, but now I know I think I'll have to fit them. 

 

Edited December 14, 2020 by GWR57xx
photo added

[Adrian Stevenson]

Hi Peter, here is a blow by blow account of me fitting the Loksound chip to my 43xx

 

Cheers, Ade.

[7007GreatWestern]

On 08/12/2020 at 18:45, GWR57xx said:

 

Does this help?:

http://www.tower-models.com/towermodels/ogauge/Heljan/locos/43xx/RW_disassembling guide_43XX.pdf

 

Thank You GWR57xx for posting this - it came in very useful when fitting a decoder to my 43xx yesterday. In case this is useful to anyone I'll post my experience. I was in the unusual position of NOT wanting DCC sound and also NOT being confident about possibly invalidating a warranty be removing the factory fitted ESU adaptor board. For a while this appeared to leave me no choice but to stump up £150+ for a Loksound 4 or 5 L. Then last week I stumbled on the fact that ESU have released a non DCC-sound equivalent decoder earlier this year to little fanfare. It's the Lokpilot 5 L, product code 59315. It cost around £70 and the ESU literature claimed it was 'mechanically compatible' with the Loksound units. I paid for Royal Mail next day delivery though it actually turned up two days later, no doubt due to Royal Mail's well documented problems at the moment. Removing the tender top was easy though I found I had to release an additional screw to the ones shown in the diagram above. The screw in question is located near one of the tender's rear steps. The decoder is then an easy push fit and asymmetric decoder pins prevent it being inserted the wrong way. When refitting the body you need to try to line up the tender front handrails with the corresponding holes in the tender running plate, just like many OO gauge tenders. And the performance? The first thing I did was to try to drive the loco on DC. It didn't respond and I feared the worse. Next I connected an NCE Powercab. To my delight the loco pulled away smoothly, its low speed performance being significantly better on DCC than DC. I haven't figured out the problem with the loco not responding to DC - maybe the appropriate CV isn't set correctly (CV 29?). At the moment I'm simply relieved that this model/decoder combination is working - I have read bad reports elsewhere on RMWeb. The moral of this tale is that there IS a less costly, plug-and-play, non-sound option for this loco though there is surprisingly little literature or discussion that this option even exists. I hope this helps, Andy.

[birdseyecircus]

I got the lokpilot for the large prairie tank as I was happy to have no DCC sound, it costs enough for the diesel locos.

Mind you fitting it to the prairie is not for the faint hearted!

Well done and enjoy your loco. 

 

Paul

[GWR57xx]

This is the motor in its mount with the brackets removed, showing the raised rims at each end:

 

 

 

 

These are the arched brackets that are meant to hold the motor securely:

 

Not sure if you can tell from the photo but the arched portion is only half the width of the bracket, so if it is fitted the wrong way round (as mine was) the motor is able to lift and disengage from the worm drive gear (as mine did). 

 

Imagine the people assembling these locos on the production line. There is nothing to prevent them fitting these brackets the wrong way round so unless they are paying attention they have a 50% chance of getting it wrong. I don't suppose they are given much time to complete the job, so Heljan must be getting a serious proportion of failures due to a silly design of bracket. It would have been a miniscule cost to make the arch full width so that the orientation made no difference...

 

Once the body was removed it was a simple fix.

Brackets back on the right way round and wires taped up ready for refitting the body:

 

The engine now runs beautifully on the rolling road and short test track.