Black 5 front bogie shorting.

[legin]

No posts  for a long time unfortunately because no railway for the past 2 years. I am wondering if the Brains Trust are able to shed any light on a problem. I have searched the forums with no result.

I purchased from Hattons about a week before they went bust, a Hornby Black 5 R3616  second hand for £125. It has only just last week been taken out of the box. Hattons said that they had tested it, but  a host of things were wrong with it which prevented it running properly.All sorted now -nearly. I think that the previous owner must have just thrown in the towel. So I am afraid it's not Hattons RIP from me.

  The remaining problem was the loco stalling  when moving  forwards only on 3 of my Peco 2nd radius r/h points  and on parts of  the  curved track  curving to the right. I know that these were actually shorts because when this occurred, the track voltage on DC dropped to 0.38 volts from 4.0 volts -which is what I was running at. (I have not chipped the loco yet until it runs properly.) None of my remaining locos ( when run on DC) caused this. The track still showed 4.0 volts When the front of the loco was nudged to the right or the leading drivers the same way, it restarted. I have tried all 9 of my other locos and none stalls anywhere. 2 of those are 4-6-0s and one 4-6-2 and they are a mongrel fleet from the 1980s through to pretty new. 

 This afternoon I  removed the front bogie, and without it, the Black5 - which were called Mickeys in Manchester in the 1960s- will perfectly negotiate all parts of my layout which is small but has 22 points and more than 100 feet of track. The bogie is of course dead in having no electrical connection. The bogie B to Bs are 14.38 and 14.40 on the micrometer but accept my 14.5 B2B gauge. I have left the driving wheel back to backs at 14.2 so as to negotiate the small points and 2nd radius curves because the loco design is 20+ years old.

I am not sure where to go from here. I could understand if the loco was shorting on some points but to also short on curves with no crossover in sight seems baffling. 

I should be very grateful if anyone has any ideas about how to remedy the problem because I am rather stumped for answers right now. Many thanks.

[Phil Bullock]

I don’t have an equivalent model to check but….

 

Are the wheels on the bogie insulated on one side only? If so is one axle reversed? Check if the bogie itself causes a short when it is detached from the loco… 

 

Hipe you get sorted! 
 

 

[Butler Henderson]

I had a shorting problem with a Hornby 4-4-0 (either Schools or T9) on a insulfrog point. There was enough sideways movement with the wheel threads being slightly wide that it manged to contact the metal rail to the other side of the plastic frog. The initial solution was to treat the point as it was an electrofrog and the ultimate solution to change it to an electrofrog.

[BJB]

The R3616 is a fairly late model Hornby Black 5  Not sure what mine is but it  looks fairly similar and is  pretty horrible had to be heavily modified to work at all and seldom gets used.    I would refit the bogie and try with no Tender first see below

Bogie wheels hitting the frame plague China built Hornby.  Nothing a cylindrical grind stone in a Dremel can't fix but whether you can face taking  the valve gear apart and re assembling is a different matter.

However it could be the chassis is live to one rail where it should not be.  Check whether any of the wheels is live to the chassis with a multimeter, test light or buzzer what ever you have handy., Obviously on heritage Hornby  A3,  B12 etc one wheel each side should be, even on the bogie I don't expect a DCC ready or DCC model to have wheels live to the chassis.   If no wheels are live to the chassis that  includes Tender wheels  then  one bogie wheel touching will not short out .   If one or all wheels one side are live then that could be the real problem, maybe lousy China design build quality, pinched wire, missing insulation etc    I think mine had the tender live to one rail, I binned the tender pickups and slashed the weight which improved performance from 4 to 6 coaches up my bank.

Other lousy China build issues are wheel tyres touching the bogie because of no spacing washers, the bogie moving back due to slack rivets or oversize pivot hole and the bogie wheel hitting the front corner of the chassis.

You could put it on eBay   But most of us stick it in the  display cabinet  or on shed and never use it.   Best of luck. 

Edited January 10 by BJB

[Phil Bullock]

Have just put a sound chip in my Hornby Princess Jim got me for Christmas. 
 

And guess what ! When running on my Kato test track there is a short in one place . Going by the spark it was apparent that something was touching the framing in front of the cylinders . When on maximum deflection if there is any unevenness in track joints the leading bogie wheels deflect upwards and touch the frame…. 
 

The loco went silent and the The fear was I had blown a V5 loksound chip …. But the protection circuitry has done its job and the sound is back . 
 

So what to do ? Try insulating the frames? Change the bogie wheels for something a tad smaller? The jury is out …. 

[Butler Henderson]

1 hour ago, Phil Bullock said:

Have just put a sound chip in my Hornby Princess Jim got me for Christmas. 
 

And guess what ! When running on my Kato test track there is a short in one place . Going by the spark it was apparent that something was touching the framing in front of the cylinders . When on maximum deflection if there is any unevenness in track joints the leading bogie wheels deflect upwards and touch the frame…. 
 

The loco went silent and the The fear was I had blown a V5 loksound chip …. But the protection circuitry has done its job and the sound is back . 
 

So what to do ? Try insulating the frames? Change the bogie wheels for something a tad smaller? The jury is out …. 

Always test run a loco on dc.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

16 hours ago, BJB said:

However it could be the chassis is live to one rail...

Agree this is possible, this was how the Hornby items introduced while Sanda Kan was the Chinese manufacturing partner were constructed until at least 2006, and the Black 5 was in that group.

 

Did Hornby upgrade the construction at some point? I have no idea, but the 'sign peculiar' of the live chassis is wire connections secured by the screw which holds the combined worm cover and motor clamp in place. 

[BJB]

Basic DCC or metal body kit common sense is to have the chassis electrically dead then one wheel touching has no detrimental effect.  I'll check whether my black 5 has an electrically dead chassis  when I play trains again hopefully on Sunday.

[cypherman]

7 hours ago, Phil Bullock said:

Have just put a sound chip in my Hornby Princess Jim got me for Christmas. 
 

And guess what ! When running on my Kato test track there is a short in one place . Going by the spark it was apparent that something was touching the framing in front of the cylinders . When on maximum deflection if there is any unevenness in track joints the leading bogie wheels deflect upwards and touch the frame…. 
 

The loco went silent and the The fear was I had blown a V5 loksound chip …. But the protection circuitry has done its job and the sound is back . 
 

So what to do ? Try insulating the frames? Change the bogie wheels for something a tad smaller? The jury is out …. 

HI, For a temporary solution you could always fit plastic wheels to the bogie and see what happens.

[Phil Bullock]

8 hours ago, cypherman said:

HI, For a temporary solution you could always fit plastic wheels to the bogie and see what happens.

That’s a thought! Will wait till I try her on the big layout and see if she misbehaves there I think… 

Edited Saturday at 08:41 by Phil Bullock

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

On 10/01/2025 at 01:05, BJB said:

Bogie wheels hitting the frame plague China built Hornby.  Nothing a cylindrical grind stone in a Dremel can't fix...

That's the solution I favour from the days of building metal kits, and it isn't solely applicable to Hornby among RTR OO brands. Any model with a cast metal block chassis that has metal tyred wheels in bogies or trucks beneath the block is potentially liable to short the track; and the tighter the radii on a layout, the more worn or roughly laid the track pieces, the steeper any gradient transitions, and the longer the model, the more likely this is to occur.

 

When cutting the flange clearance arches in the underside of a block, make sure it corresponds to the full arc of the swing for the smallest radius curve on your layout. 

[RodneyS]

On 09/01/2025 at 18:15, legin said:

 I think that the previous owner must have just thrown in the towel. 

I know what you mean.  A friend bought a second hand Black 5, probably from ebay.

He asked me to look at it as the pick ups were badly bent on one side.

Every time I straightened them out the loco would run a few inches and then bend them again.

 

I eventually found that the centre crank pin on one side had not been pushed in far enough from the inside when the loco was made, so the head was catching the pick ups every revolution.

 

I managed to remove the crank pin and open the hole up slightly.  The crank pin then went in properly and all was well.

 

The previous owner had cut off the centre pick up, presumably to try and cure the problem.

When that didn't work he just sold it on.

Rodney

[legin]

Thank you one and all for your very helpful insights. for which I am very grateful. I have done many of the tests suggested apart from removing the tender which I did not think was causing the problem. I thought that it might be a question of one of the bogie wheels shorting on the cylinder on the left hand side of the loco as the bogie pivots to the right on the curve. However, I have found the problem nearby. The rear left hand bogie wheel is shorting on the motion at the crosshead. To test this, I put thin sellotape on this wheel and the loco runs like a dream. However this is a mess and won't last

 

So what to do about it is causing a headache and I am sure that members will have better ideas than I have.. One of them, --thanks, Phil - is to replace the offending wheel with a plastic one but I will then have to weight the bogie. Or I reduce the back to back on that axle but it will then probably derail.   Another is to paint the wheel but this is unlikely to last long. I could also judiciously bend the crosshead outwards but then this might cause the piston rod to jam in the cylinder. I don't know how much play there is in it or if a 1mm drill might open it out slightly. Or also bend the cylinder slightly outwards but it feels like plastic and is not responding to my magnetic probe. Maybe it's alloy.The other major problem with this method is that I have already had to bend like Beckham the  eccentric because the motion locked up as soon as I got the loco out of the box . That was a bit of a nightmare because the tolerances on the valve gear  are so fine and it's incredibly flimsy.

.

Short of all that, -pardon the pun - I am out of ideas. Apart from building Airfix kits, I have no model building experience and my interest is simply running trains to a complex timetable. I can, however, dismantle locos and just about put them back together although I have never touched the valve gear apart from the bending. So rather limited ability unfortunately. This is all rather disappointing because in the 1980s, all my locos ran straight out of the box with the exception of an Airfix Royal Scot when I had to remove the bogie spring. I have had progressively more problems with locos produced after 2000 or thereabouts,  and this Black 5 really takes the biscuit.Not  good enough.

Anyway, any help you can give me would be fantastic because, as I said, the loco runs otherwise as sweet as a nut and that's before I chip it.

 

One more thing whilst I am here, off topic, is that 2 days ago I was very disappointed to find that my local model shop in Paignton has closed. It suddenly occurred to me I had left with the repairer there, Andrew, my SDJR Jinty No 45 because it had stopped working. I only remembered this yesterday and had not visited the shop for two years because my layout was not in use. The owners retired in March 2024 and there are no contact details.. Obviously, I would like the loco back but have no idea where to start. This is entirely my fault because I should have chased it up before the shop closed and the loco has probably been sold on. Andrew, however, had lung cancer, and I did not want to bother him. But the loco was new (to me) and cost in total £100 including converting to DCC. I know I have about less than a 1% chance of getting it back. If it was disposed of as a non runner, I would be prepared to pay whatever the recipient paid for it. But it looks like hard cheese and could be anywhere.

 

Many thanks,  Nigel

[sjp23480]

Perhaps a smear of epoxy glue or clear varnish on the back of the cross head would be enough to prevent the short?

 

You could also narrow the b2b of the wheels to give a little more clearance?

 

Steve

[Butler Henderson]

Maybe get a new set of bogie wheels? Sounds like the problem is them being too thick

 

Alan Gibson 4838ST: 3’2″ 10 Spoke Bevel Rim Bogie Wheels (LMS/BR)