Hornby Tender Drive

[manna]

G'day Folks

 

Is this possible, Can a Hornby tender drive be wired to run by it's self (ie, minus the loco) ???????

 

manna

[Titan]

You would have to add pickups to the insulated wheels, which might be a little tricky if they have gears on the back, but I expect it is do-able if you are determined enough.

[DCB]

No is the simple answer.  You can't pick up reliably through traction tyred wheels.  My solution to testing a powered tender is an old slave loco chassis,  Mine was once an X04 powered "Polly" but now its minus roods motor pick up etc and has a lead connected to the supresser fixing screw so live to the uninsulated wheels with a small crocodile clip which can grip the contact pin on the tender.    Seems to work and it runs freely enough for the tender go tow or push it.  I also have a Hornby Dublo bogie with Lima wheels which does the same thing rather more elegantly but I guess more people have random Hornby chassis than have 60 year old Hornby Dublo bits

[steviesparx]

Some later Chinese motored tenders had pickups on both polarity wheelsets, so it was technically possible to get them to run sans loco....However, as has been pointed out, one side is fitted with traction tyres which, at best, limits conductivity.

 

I did remove traction tyres from one such 'Scotsman' tender, purely as an experiment - it ran really well on its own, however was unable to maintain any traction once a coach was added....

Edited February 3, 2019 by steviesparx

[manna]

G'day Folks

 

Thanks for the replies, it was just a thought I had.

 

manna

[uax6]

Sort of on topic, is there a drop in replacement wheelset that will fit the Hornby 4F tender drive unit that has metal tyres at all please? I don't like the plastic wheelsets as they leave dirt on the railhead.

 

Andy G

[DCB]

18 minutes ago, uax6 said:

Sort of on topic, is there a drop in replacement wheelset that will fit the Hornby 4F tender drive unit that has metal tyres at all please? I don't like the plastic wheelsets as they leave dirt on the railhead.

 

Andy G

It should be possible to fit Hornby Saint etc tender drive wheelsets if you can remove the Airfix/ Hornby gears and graft them onto the Hornby whels instead of the Hornby gears.   I would look for a Bachmann 3F loco chassis and convert to loco drive.  Or maybe go for an old Triang chassis with Airfix 14XX wheels probably with a High level gearbox.   To be honest I binned my Airfix 4F and just kept the handrails and boiler backhead which I fitted to my Triang 3F at which point I found I couldn't fit the motor any more as it usually occupies the cab. 

Enough wittering, the pain killers are defeating the sciatica so its back to bed for me.

[uax6]

Ah, but I'm using the tenders to drive old Lima Crabs.... I've got a mix of Airfix and Hornby made tenders, so I'll have a looksee to see if I can remove the gear from the back and graft onto the Saint wheelsets...

 

Andy G

[RosiesBoss]

G’day, all,

 

I am also not impressed with the design of the tender drive used for Mainline/Hornby 4Fs and Dean Goods. I have been slowly working through my original stock of three to either kitbash them into other models or replace the mechanism with something more reliable and smooth running.

 

Nevertheless, I have found an interim solution which gets away from the original grooved plastic wheels that require the use of traction tyres or Bullfrog Snot to keep them on the track.

Hornby make a suitable metal tyred 16mm dia wheel for their Grange: Part No. X9357, still available through Peter’s Spares.

 

My upgrade follows this sequence:

1.       Remove the original wheelsets from the tender.

2.       Carefully take each wheel which has a gear moulded behind it off its axle.

3.       Using a belt sander, grind the wheel away from the gear. (Try not to grind away your fingers at the same time!)

4.       Clean up the gears.

5.       Remove one wheel from each Hornby Grange axle, taking care to not distort the plastic centres.

6.       Fit one gear to each axle, then refit the Hornby wheel, adjusting the back-top back distances to 14.3mm and check that each wheelset runs true, without any wobble.

7.       Refit the wheelsets to the tender.

 

This procedure results in a tender that runs much sweeter, but with greatly reduced tractive effort. I imagine that pickups could be added, as the Hornby tyres are metal.

 

 

In my case, I still rely on the loco’s pickups. To restore the model’s tractive effort, I also apply a thin and even coating of Bullfrog Snot to the wheels on one side only and have replaced the plastic wheel keeper with a heavy metal one.

 

For me, the best solution has been to make use of the loco body moulding and use a powered loco chassis. This has resulted in my collection now including a Stella class 2-4-0 and a 388 class 0-6-0.

 

Links to those rebuilds are here:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?app=core&module=search&do=user_activity&mid=17793

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/134586-gwr-stella-2-4-0-kitbash/

 

I hope these ideas are of some interest.

 

Regards,

Rob

[manna]

G'Day Folks

 

Thanks for the replies, the last one is very interesting, I have converted a few 'Schools' tenders to look like GN tender, but are a little low (see below) now I need to change the wheel sets and change the gears. cool.