High Level gearbox and motor on Hornby 08?

[thx712517]

I've got myself a newer Hornby Class 08 that pulls decently well and creeps at low speed. However the thing is quite noisy to me compared to other locomotives I've owned after four hours total of running in, usually in 25-30 minute segments in alternating directions without load on a large loop track. I came across High Level Kits a while back but I'm not quite sure how difficult or easy an installation is and if it would require a scratch chassis or if it can swap out the existing gear drive. It looks like I would want a LoadHauler Compact+ gearbox going by the following blurb on the site. 

 

"Meanwhile the LoadHauler Compact+ gives you a lot of gear reduction in the smallest possible space, with the narrower, straight option being an ideal size and shape to fit under the bonnet of an BR Class 08 diesel shunter." 

 

Ideally paired with a Mashima 1430 and either an 80:1 or 108:1 gearing. Alternately, is there some trick to running in that will quiet down the loco, are my expectations of silent operation unrealistic, or do they make alternate gearing for the Hornby mechanism to slow it further? 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

One step at a time.

 

The Hornby model's drive should not be noticeably noisier than other mechanically similar locos.

(My own was comfortably the noisiest small scale model I have ever owned! Due to a dimensional error the bearings on the worm shaft would heat and bind, and it then screamed like a small girl. Some Brasso was used to grind clearance in these bearings and now it is near silent, all you hear is the wheels on the rails at normal listening distance: but keep in mind that it is limited to a scale 20mph.)

 

How would you characterise the noise the model makes? Scream, whine, drone, grinding, rumble, chatter; continuous, warble, wow, intermittent? These can give a clue to the location and potential causes which is helpful if you want to pursue a potential cure.

(My own 'screamer': only the motor shaft speed components are likely to produce high frequency output. That the screaming only started after about a minute's operation made it likely that heating was the cause.)

 

Hornby don't provide any alternative gearing. The 40:1 drive line coupled to their good size five pole motor is more than adequate to replicating the prototype movement given adequate control equipment.

 

Installation of a kit gearbox in a RTR chassis requires you to plot the fit within the body shell and chassis block casting and to make any modifications required; and to determine that if using the original wheelsets that the axle diameter is a fit in an available final drive gear. You will be on your own removing and restoring a wheel with a flycrank on the axle selected to take the final drive gear. (I have had lots of RTR loco mechanisms in pieces including driven wheel removals; and disturbing flycranks would put me off, unless the mounting design is clearly robust.)