King Class ringfield tender drive spares; running

[RobinofLoxley]

I have just finished reconditioning a couple of Coronation spec tenders with Ringfield 3-pole motors. I have now started on a King Class – Charles 1 running No 6010.

The tender layout was different, especially the wheels and axles which I needed to replace as they were loose. The central idle pair do not have a full width axle but there are 2 stub axles, one mounted on the cover plate and the other on the motor block. The cover plate item is a removable part the block stub seems fixed. There is no way to identify it as a separate part on the Service sheet.

I have bought replacement axles and wheels but they don’t fit properly on the stubs – I am following that up with the supplier but as they run very loose, especially the block stub, I wondered if there was a bush or something between the wheel and the stub. There’s no evidence for it, I may just have the wrong spares. If anyone can throw any light on that I would be grateful. I odered according to the service sheet part numbers.

The second  question is about the axle setup. Is there a defined spacing to go for? I ask because these locos and tenders all run well round bends but occasionally stop or hesitate on straights. Checking the way the tender sits on straight rails it looks as if there is so much play that if the tender plain wheels are pushed properly onto the rail there is so much of a gap that the traction tyre is nearly missing contact on the track on the opposite side. I have tried easing the wheel set apart, of course the driving side wheel must remain meshed with the other drive gears, but then the non driving side wheel is liable to fall off.

Finally, the service sheet shows two collectors for the tender which I don’t have. Surprisingly its run perfectly without them, but I can’t work out how. Should I refit them? Made me think the tender may be from another loco??

I wanted to attach a photo but the site timed out on the upload. Twice.

[DCB]

We had two of those until recently.   One from the 1980s or before,    The old one was unbelievably worn but went like a rocket It was just about our only loco capable of lifting an H/D 8 coach set up our 1 in 36 grade by rushing it.  The later one was awful, sort of a Khaki colour.  Both were retired when the feeble loco drive one came out but will live again with loco drive X04 powered chassis and lots of weight.

The Hornby  wheels are often tight to gauge, (Just like many Bachmann are wide to gauge,)  I go for 14.2mm sliding fit, that's about 14.5mm  with a yes no gauge, 14.2mm one end and 14.7mm the other. If the 14,2 fits and not the 14.7 its a pass.  You can correct it but you need to pop the wheels off and add spacers to control the side play so the gears don't come out of mesh.

 The tender pick up through the draw bar is medium useless on these locos and causes stuttering on the straights. I think the wire sometimes breaks off the loco end of the contact and makes contact on bends not straights.    Test the tender with different locos to establish if it is the tender or loco at fault.  I have on occasion forced thin fuse wire around where the loco wheel bushes fit the chassis to improve the contact.   The stub axle wheels do flop about, I think its wear on the stub axles, a bush or sleeve would probably cure it. 

The Tender Wheelbase is wrong, the older non powered Hall tender and later tender drive Saint/ 28XX tender wheelbase is correct  so it is possible to cobble up a more accurate tender from Hornby bits. 

[RobinofLoxley]

Thanks David. Any suggestion where I might obtain suitable spacers please. Sounds like something that might be fitted to most if not all of my tender drives. I have run using different tenders and they are similar. My only trick has been playing with the plates, bending them in a bit to get, as it seemed to me, more pressure on the contact points.  I'm really happy with the speed and pulling power of all my tenders, when they are working well.

 

Are you suggesting I should obtain a wheel set for a Saint tender in place of what I have, or just replace the axles using Saint service sheet as a reference for example? I thought all these tenders were similar domensions, but now I have checked I have found that my county class tender is longer than the King, which surely can't be right. My King has a plastic tender frame too.

 

How did you measure your wheel spacing? I dont have any callipers so I will be doing it with a ruler and i take it it's the inside dimension.

 

 

[RobinofLoxley]

Talk about answering your own queries, i had read the part numbers off the wrong service sheet. But some questions still remain..

[DCB]

Hi  The 28XX / Saint tender has a longer wheelbase than the King tender.  The King is under scale, but the Saint has an earlier pre King style profile to the under frame.  I popped a King type tender body on a Saint chassis for a tender for an Airfix Castle and turned a blind eye to the frame profile.

I just use washers as spacers, probably 8 ba  but it means popping the wheels off. I guess one could make up a spacer with a U groove and avoid removing the wheels.

[RobinofLoxley]

To be honest, when I looked at the performance overall of all my running stock I decided that actually the ringfield overall were the best runners by a mile. i dont have any modern locos. The ringfields will all do 50 laps (about 20 metres each) without derailing and once they get going the hesitations and stops get less and less frequent. I simply put the wheels back on the tenders close enought to have no problems with the gears missing or risking the wheels working loose from their axles. I'm just waiting for the correct axle/wheels  to arrive to hopefully fix the last tender then I will have 6 good runners. Compared to the Bachmann locos I have got more recently from auction that can't do a lap without derailing somewhere, I have nothing to complain about. For these I need weights, so I decided to ask on a separate thread about those.