Repair to Lionel Standard Gauge tin plate #384 loco and coaches

[gordon s]

Thanks Fred. I’ve run the loco off my 12vDC Gaugemaster and it runs well with a max of 12vDC versus a max 18vAC. The bulbs are all an acceptable brightness, so that’s fine. As I said, this cropped up on eBay and with 60W and 3 -12v variable it could work. At £10 it may well be worth a punt.

 

I’m a firm believer you get what you pay for, but for the limited use this will get, it appears a cheap solution. The probability will be a few minutes demo or supervised play.

 

£40 for a Marklin used controller landed in the UK is of course a much better solution, but as always it’s cost/quality/safety v the actual use it will get.

 

Looking at the other pics, it does have an off position.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by gordon s

[PatB]

If it were me, I'd give it a go, with the proviso that I'd treat it with the caution I afford all Ebay electrical goods and, for instance, never leave it unattended when powered up. Also bear in mind it will offer no short circuit protection. Old AC controllers don't either, so, again I'd chance it. Those less cavalier may prefer to wire it up via a suitable circuit breaker or other current limiting device. A light bulb will do the job but I'm not sure what would be suitable. The car indicator bulb typically recommended for 00 use won't work for the sort of currents and voltages required by US toy trains. 

[Il Grifone]

It appears to have short circuit protection - under "Design Features:

 

6. Advanced design can safely protect your equipment from overvoltage, overcurrent, short circuit and overheating."

 

At worst include a fuse in series with the supply.

It looks good value at just under a tenner.
 

[gordon s]

Thanks IG. Decided to risk a couple of beers and order one. I’ll probably take a look inside to see the standard of soldering/crimping before passing it onto my friend. It just seemed a simple way to get this loco working. With no polarity changes and voltage limited to 12v it should allow the loco to run around its oval of track without risk of flying off the rails.

 

Had numerous mails from USPS advising every step that my parcel is taking to get to the UK. Hopefully it won’t get lost amongst all those missing/illegal votes.......

Edited November 8, 2020 by gordon s

[gordon s]

Afternoon all....

 

Some good news and some not so good. The good stuff is that the wheels and spare parts arrived this morning. Don't really know why, but I ordered a new set of rod screws to go with the wheels. That was a result as when I tried the old screws, the first three fitted, but the fourth had no intention of going in the hole. Somewhat surprised I found this last screw had a thread bigger than the others, so at some or other in the past, I guess a screw had sheared and they drilled out the wheel and fitted a larger screw. Jeez, that was result after waiting a couple of weeks for the parts to arrive.....

 

 

I've made up a quartering jig and will fit the gears and press home the axles today/tomorrow.

 

Any ideas which way they should be mounted quartering wise or doesn't it matter?  Looking at a few UK locos from the cab, the right hand side appear to be 90 degrees ahead of the left. Were US loco's the same?

 

The bad news is that the cheap Chinese power supply was a total no. As someone who believes you get what you pay for, I shouldn't be surprised. I didn't even get as far as testing it as it was fitted with an illegal and dangerous three pin UK style plug. No fuse fitted, a sleeved earth pin and minimal gaps and clearances to live pins was enough for me, so it will shortly be heading back for a full refund.

 

I'll get the loco kitted out first and test everything and then go back to the original plan and buy a Marklin unit.

Edited November 17, 2020 by gordon s

[Il Grifone]

Most, but not all, UK locos were RH lead, but I don't know if this was the practice elsewhere. AFAIK it is just a convention with no technical advantage one way or the other. For a model it doesn't matter at all, as you can't see both sides at the same time. All that matters is that it is around 90 degrees, but all must be the same. For a gear connected mechanism even the 90 degrees is not important.

[gordon s]

Thanks IG, I was thinking that may the case as in I suspected it was cosmetic rather than mechanical. I have the two geared wheels fitted and the rotation of the wheels with a coupling rod fitted show no sign of binding. There is one small click which I can see it is caused by wear within the spur gear chain where a hole in chassis has a little slop versus the shaft of the small gear that drives the wheel set.

 

I started using my bench drill to insert the axles, but it really needed a lot of pressure to push the axle in and I was concerned about breaking something. In the end I started with the drill and pushed them home in the bench vice. That was fine. The issue this morning is how the add the other two wheels and yet maintain the rod spacing. Knowing now it doesn’t matter if it’s 85-90 degrees simplifies the task with just the rod spacing to worry about.

 

My biggest fear is messing up as once the wheels are on, they are really on and it would be nigh impossible to get one off again. The axle splines mean there is no leeway to get the wheel partly on and then gently rotate it as they engage as soon as you start to press them on. Need to tread carefully......

[gordon s]

Stumbled across this a few minutes ago.....

 

Wonderful memories.

 

[Il Grifone]

First fit a wheel to one end of the axle and then insert in the frame. Lightly press on the other wheel (I align the spokes by eye). Repeat with the other axle and check that all runs smoothly. Remove and refit if necessary and then press the wheels fully on. In the event of three or more axles, do them one at a time. If the wheels are really tight, it might be advisable to ream them out a little. I managed to destroy some wheels with over enthusiastic pressure recently. (They were only Hornby (for a 00 0-6-0T), so no great loss.)

If it is necessary to remove a wheel at any time, it is advisable to keep them paired. That way it's only necessary to locate the wheel on the axle splines and push it back on. The splines will ensure the quartering is correct.

[gordon s]

Well, all done and happy to say, it runs well on the bench, so many thanks for all your support and advice. I have run into one problem though.....

 

Excited by my efforts this morning, I laid out the track on the floor and off the loco went down the straights with no problem, but there is an issue negotiating the tight curves. With nothing to go on, I set the back to back at 1.95" to match the pony truck, but suspect the larger wheels and fixed wheelbase mean the drivers are binding on the curves.

 

Is anyone able to give me a back to back measurement for this standard gauge loco?

 

I would have thought that 1.95" would have plenty of clearance on 2.125" track gauge, but it appears not. Means taking all the loco apart again to reset the wheels, but it has to be done.....

Edited November 18, 2020 by gordon s

[Nearholmer]

A quick fix, if the track isn't too precious, might be to ease it out a bit with your thumbs.

[Mark Carne]

15 hours ago, gordon s said:

Thanks IG, I was thinking that may the case as in I suspected it was cosmetic rather than mechanical. I have the two geared wheels fitted and the rotation of the wheels with a coupling rod fitted show no sign of binding. There is one small click which I can see it is caused by wear within the spur gear chain where a hole in chassis has a little slop versus the shaft of the small gear that drives the wheel set.

 

I started using my bench drill to insert the axles, but it really needed a lot of pressure to push the axle in and I was concerned about breaking something. In the end I started with the drill and pushed them home in the bench vice. That was fine. The issue this morning is how the add the other two wheels and yet maintain the rod spacing. Knowing now it doesn’t matter if it’s 85-90 degrees simplifies the task with just the rod spacing to worry about.

 

My biggest fear is messing up as once the wheels are on, they are really on and it would be nigh impossible to get one off again. The axle splines mean there is no leeway to get the wheel partly on and then gently rotate it as they engage as soon as you start to press them on. Need to tread carefully......

This is the pillar drill I used to press on the wheels on the Standard gauge motor I rewheeled, might be a bit bigger than most folk have at home. And even with this, they took some pressing.

 

Mark.

[gordon s]

Managed to press the wheels in to 1.875" and all is well......

 

I have the circuit of track laid out on the lounge floor which takes me back a bit and happy to say the loco runs really well for something 85 years old.

 

The only problem is that it runs for half a dozen circuits and the Gaugemaster D I have says sod this, I've had enough and packs up. Looking at the spec, it is only a 1A controller and I suspect is not man enough for the job.

 

Right now I only have the loco pulling it's tender, so with two coaches bolted on as well, it will take some power to get it started.

 

Looking at the Marklin 6647, they are rated at 32vA which will be 2A at 16v or 2.66A at 12v. I'm about to order a second hand one from eBay and with postage etc, it will be around £40 landed in the UK.

 

Couple of questions. Will 2A be sufficient to run the loco plus coaches and if not, is there any alternative for similar cost around £40 on the second hand market? 

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Video?

[gordon s]

Hardly Oscar stuff, but running on 12vDC

 

 

....and again on 16vAC.  The video's run for around 40 secs and the controller cuts out around after around a minute's running. I guess it must be an electronic protection device as it works again after a couple of minutes with no load.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Thank you (although I am really meant to be working here!).

 

Do you find that the motor is happier on AC? I've not really seen it for myself, but have been told that these old wound-field motors run more smoothly, with less brush-sparking, on AC.

[gordon s]

It does run better on 16vAC, but I wondered if that was just because of 16v versus 12v. I still have the power pack I bought from China with an illegal mains plug. They have given me a refund and don't want it back, so I may well cut off the plug and fit a 5A fused plug. It is rated at 60W so 5A at 12v and I don't mind treading very carefully for testing, but would not pass it on to be golfing pal.

 

I'll be interested to see what the cable is like once I've cut the plug off.....

[Il Grifone]

Probably very thin! I'd fit a 1A fuse in the plug.

 

I don't know for certain, but since a Trix 00 transformer was rated 3A to run 2 trains plus lights etc. I would expect you'd need most of the the 2A just for an 0 gauge loco.

You could always replace the coach lights with LEDs powered via a bridge rectifier and resistors.

[gordon s]

Cut off the plug and fitted an approved fused one. The incoming mains cable is 16 strands of 0.06mm copper and the output cable 24 strands of 0.09mm copper.

 

Decided to play around carefully and it seems to work. Max 12v but with 60W it could provide 5A which is more than enough.

 

I still wouldn't let kids play around with it or leave it plugged in unattended, but purely for test it was OK.

 

 

[BR60103]

The instruction book that came with my O27 set had a list of the watts required for various equipment (locos, lighted cars, accessories.) Sorry, but it's disappeared in the last 65 years.  The transformer was rated at 90 watts -- never knew if this was output or input -- so about 5 amps at 16 volts.  There was a smaller one and larger ones up to the ZW at 275 watts that had controls for 4 trains.

None of the books about Lionel in my collection have any useful information.

 

[Nearholmer]

7 hours ago, BR60103 said:

None of the books about Lionel in my collection have any useful information.

 

That seems to be the story of books about Lionel!

 

I have one history, and it is 97% excited frothing about how wonderful the trains and accessories were, and 3% dry, hard facts.

[sncf231e]

So you all are playing with Lionel trains and do not have Advanced Model Railroading by Louis Hertz?

I cannot believe it.

Regards

Fred