Hornby Thompson L1

[Wingman Mothergoose]

12 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Go for the soft spring on the pivot post then. Have them on all 3 that I have, completely reliable. (The front trucks have all been modified by the crudest method imaginable to single pivot and the wheels track properly.)

Just need to find a spring....

 

Motor will be replaced later this week. 

[Theakerr]

Regarding the Bogie de-railing when running in reverse, somewhere on this thread very early on it was considered a known problem due to the rather weird attachment mechanism.  As I remember there were two solutions both of which seemed to work.  I don't know if you can do a word search on the thread or not.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

39 minutes ago, Wingman Mothergoose said:

Just need to find a spring...

Got any Bachmann split chassis locos with carrying wheels? Many of these were well and truly oversprung with a half inch long soft spring; and one such spring is good to make half a dozen shorter springs which slightly stretched will load the bogie about 10-15g, which is plenty.

[Wingman Mothergoose]

So an update on my Hornby L1 woes. 
I’ve bought a new motor to replace the current one as it’s really noisy and the loco is a pretty poor runner. As I was removing the decoder I noticed the suppression capacitor and decided to snip it off. Out of curiosity I left the decoder in and gave it a test run on the rolling road, it now feels like a different loco! A LOT smoother and almost no noise from the motor. Looks like I’ll be sending the motor back and saving myself £20

 

Chris

[Theakerr]

Never even thought of that but it is one to add to the mental library and hope I can retrieve it if the time comes.  It is doubly interesting though because there is another thread going about 4 Bachmann Locos that have essentially stopped running  and one of my suggestions, based on experience and the forum, was to eliminate the decoder plug board by wireing the pickups directly to the motor because some boards have gone FUBAR and I had read also that some people had cut the capacitor. 

[Wingman Mothergoose]

On 07/06/2020 at 20:05, Theakerr said:

Never even thought of that but it is one to add to the mental library and hope I can retrieve it if the time comes.  It is doubly interesting though because there is another thread going about 4 Bachmann Locos that have essentially stopped running  and one of my suggestions, based on experience and the forum, was to eliminate the decoder plug board by wireing the pickups directly to the motor because some boards have gone FUBAR and I had read also that some people had cut the capacitor. 

I've removed the capacitors on some of my other locos, but as the L1 was a more recent purchase I didn't think about it when I fitted the decoder. the motor is still on the noisy side, but I can live with it, and when I eventually get around to fitting sound to it that won't matter too much. I've got a couple more locos that don't run as they ought to, so I'll check if they still have the capacitors fitted or not...

 

Chris 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

On ‎08‎/‎06‎/‎2020 at 16:33, 313201 said:

...Once the socket is fully removed and pickups/motor wired and tested, any fixing points for screws are also cut off and the screws kept as spares.

 

The space where the dcc socket was located then provides room for extra weight to be added.  I fully recommend this action to anybody who does not do dcc.

It's also good for any DCC users that prefer to hardwire and locate the decoder in a better position*, so that weight can be installed where it needs to go.

 

*However in this matter the L1 is exonerated: Hornby have put the decoder socket in the generous void provided by the bunker end, and the model is adequately heavy for its class 4 rating. (Now, had Hornby made the bunker with no bottom, and the plastic coal a removable cover resting on a slight step inside the bunker, there could have been the option for decoder installation without need for removing the body...)

 

Edited June 9, 2020 by 34theletterbetweenB&D

[jazzer]

On 02/06/2020 at 20:41, micklner said:

Peter spares sell replacements on ebay. The final gear is part of the wheel set, all you have to do is remove valve gear ,take off the bottom plate and replace the geared wheel centre wheel set.

I have got it sorted but be warned ! Somewhere along the line Hornby have changed to motor position and driven axle .  I note you refer to the geared centre wheel set which at the time I thought was a simple mistake, as mine drives the rear wheels.

I ordered a set from Peters Spares advertised as an L1 wheel set up when they arrived the centre driver’s were geared. I then had to get another set with the gear on the rear axle.

Part x6227 has the centre axle driven, but part x6218 has the rear wheels driven. 
Anyone know when this change happened ? 

[31A]

2 hours ago, jazzer said:

I have got it sorted but be warned ! Somewhere along the line Hornby have changed to motor position and driven axle .  I note you refer to the geared centre wheel set which at the time I thought was a simple mistake, as mine drives the rear wheels.

I ordered a set from Peters Spares advertised as an L1 wheel set up when they arrived the centre driver’s were geared. I then had to get another set with the gear on the rear axle.

Part x6227 has the centre axle driven, but part x6218 has the rear wheels driven. 
Anyone know when this change happened ? 

 

That's interesting.  The ones I've got all drive on the rear axle, but I think they were all early releases.

 

The service sheet gives both the part numbers you've mentioned for the driving wheel sets (Item 5) and at the top of the column refers to the "R" numbers of the locos which use either type:

 

http://www.lendonsmodelshop.co.uk/pdf/Hornby Service Sheets/No.353B Thompson L1 Class.pdf

 

 

[jazzer]

15 hours ago, 31A said:

 

That's interesting.  The ones I've got all drive on the rear axle, but I think they were all early releases.

 

The service sheet gives both the part numbers you've mentioned for the driving wheel sets (Item 5) and at the top of the column refers to the "R" numbers of the locos which use either type:

 

http://www.lendonsmodelshop.co.uk/pdf/Hornby Service Sheets/No.353B Thompson L1 Class.pdf

 

 

 

Yes, and I have just noticed on the service sheet that the cylinder block and pony truck don’t all have the same part numbers either.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

1 hour ago, jazzer said:

Yes, and I have just noticed on the service sheet that the cylinder block and pony truck don’t all have the same part numbers either.

Could it be that the original and not remotely necessary 'two pivot' pony truck has been replaced by a simpler single pivot truck, which does the job perfectly well. (Converted all mine to single pivot by the crudest method imaginable.) That would be progress, as it might indicate that Hornby are abandoning the useless encumbrance of the two pivot pony truck mechanism.

[jazzer]

1 hour ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

Could it be that the original and not remotely necessary 'two pivot' pony truck has been replaced by a simpler single pivot truck, which does the job perfectly well. (Converted all mine to single pivot by the crudest method imaginable.) That would be progress, as it might indicate that Hornby are abandoning the useless encumbrance of the two pivot pony truck mechanism.

I don’t know. I only have the one L1 as I was so disappointed with the running originally. After it packed up and went back to Hornby I was very happy with it. I suspect it is like “real “ L1” I.e basically an excellent model but badly let down by some serious design faults !  I suppose mine must be one of the original Hornby models. I never had any trouble with it derailing as others seem to but the bottom plate did fracture just behind the pony truck and had to be replaced, which is not something one would expect on a model that had very little use.

Oh, and three of the buffers have fallen off. Two have been glued back on and after a while fell off again. The problem seems to to be the holes in the buffer beam are a bit on the big side and not enough surface for the glue to grip properly..

All very frustrating as these things are not cheap and I would like  couple more, but there’s no point if there are all these problems

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[nathan70000]

I recieved an "as-new" 67777 today and I was disappointed to find that the smoke box door handle had come loose in the box. It was duly carefully glued back on only to be immediately snapped back off again when I tried putting it back in the transparent clamshell tray! Truly atrocious packaging design from Hornby. This is about the third ex-LNER loco I've had from Hornby with this exact problem.

 

Does anyone know where I can find those little external glass windows by the side of the cab? One of them is missing on mine and it wasn't in the box. If they're available as spares I might get a few since I should imagine they come off quite easily.

Edited May 24, 2021 by nathan70000