97xx Posted June 6, 2020 Share Posted June 6, 2020 Thought I'd post this in case of value to others, as I don't recall seeing it mentioned elsewhere. Going through my HD collection during the recent lockdown I came across a 2-6-4 tank which I had from new (and so know the history). It was always a fine and quiet runner. It's not been run for probably 30 years. What I found was that it moved off smoothly in one direction but in the other it stalled until a fair bit of power applied before it moved away with a bit of a start. Then appeared to run smoothly and fine. All cleaned and serviced, remained the same. Loosening the gear grubscrews showed freely turning motion, no quartering issues and so on. SOLUTION: it turned out that the horseshoe poles were not centred on the armature, resulting in one possibly *just* rubbing. Loosening the large cheesehead screw and nut, and re-centring the poles produced a perfectly smooth and progressive start and run in each direction. I hadn't appreciated that there was so much potential for maladjustment of the poles - you would be forgiven for thinking that 'doing it all up' centred them on the armature by design. Not so! 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul H Vigor Posted June 6, 2020 Share Posted June 6, 2020 3 hours ago, 97xx said: Thought I'd post this in case of value to others, as I don't recall seeing it mentioned elsewhere. Going through my HD collection during the recent lockdown I came across a 2-6-4 tank which I had from new (and so know the history). It was always a fine and quiet runner. It's not been run for probably 30 years. What I found was that it moved off smoothly in one direction but in the other it stalled until a fair bit of power applied before it moved away with a bit of a start. Then appeared to run smoothly and fine. All cleaned and serviced, remained the same. Loosening the gear grubscrews showed freely turning motion, no quartering issues and so on. SOLUTION: it turned out that the horseshoe poles were not centred on the armature, resulting in one possibly *just* rubbing. Loosening the large cheesehead screw and nut, and re-centring the poles produced a perfectly smooth and progressive start and run in each direction. I hadn't appreciated that there was so much potential for maladjustment of the poles - you would be forgiven for thinking that 'doing it all up' centred them on the armature by design. Not so! One of the things I love about older mechanisms: the opportunity to tinker with simpler engineering 1 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
97xx Posted June 6, 2020 Author Share Posted June 6, 2020 Yes, this must be the biggest 'problem' I've had with all my HD/Wrenn stuff. Not the last word in fidelity, but no zinc pest, wobbly wheels, broken plastics, graunchy gears and so on... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Il Grifone Posted June 6, 2020 Share Posted June 6, 2020 (edited) No zinc pest as long as you avoid pre-war items. There is a Southern 0-6-2T on eBay at the moment, but the fact that it is on a 2 rail chassis possibly indicates something.... https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/392820915124?ul_noapp=true Edited June 6, 2020 by Il Grifone Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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