Help with K's gears

[hayfield]

I am building an old K's loco and would like to keep the HMP motor (its the one that attaches to the axle) and gears, I know they are not that good but I am trying to keep it as original as I can.

 

Trouble is that the gear is a push fit plastic one that fits the axle and has come loose. I have tried drilling two holes through the boss on to the axle and dropped both super glue through one hole and epoxy through the other. Neither has worked.

 

I have several spare Romford gear sets but I may not have the correct size hole in the worm to fit the motor, then again they may be the wrong size to fit anyway.

 

Any thoughts please or does anyone have a spare gear, I guess most people would have thrown them away, but its worth a try.

[jamie92208]

From my experience with K's kits my only advice would be to buy a new motor and gearbox.

 

Jamie

[micklner]

ditto

 

 

bin it, if the motor lasts more than 10 minutes you will be lucky

[bigherb]

From what I can remember there is a slight missmatch between Romford and K's gears, I think the teeth will only just touch if you try to fit Romford gears. wasn't the motor shaft only 1/16', anyway there was a reason I never fitted Romfords to K's motors. I used to fit the original motor to my kit and then replace it with an upgrade when the original failed but both my Q1's still have the original motors and are used fairly regulary. If it you have one of the good ones it may well be worth trying. You may be able to drill through the hub of the gear and the axle and stake it with a rod through the hole.

[Metropolitan]

I agree that it's nice to keep these old K's kits as original as possible. I've built quite a few now and to say the least the motors can be 'variable'. They have a reputation for burning out although I have found that greasing the motor bearings sorts this out. Also, the gearing is way too high for anything other than a small shunter. A good test of the motor is to fire it up at a full 12v and see whether it holds a steady speed. If it's rev's go up and down at a constant voltage it's a dud.

 

So, unless you have a good'un ( and good ones do occur) I wouldn't fit it. And it sounds like yours is going to be nothing but trouble. The motors do come up on eBay occasionally but quite honestly considering all the hours of work you will be putting in to build it I would fit a modern mashima and box.

[Poggy1165]

Yeah, another agree with the aboves. All Ks motors are fit for is ballast inside a van, or something like that.

[bertiedog]

As other have said.....

 

Junk the K's gear, the miss match with Romford was down to K's, although in fact the tooth form of some Romford gears made in the 70's/80's was a bit suspect. The moulded plastic gear by K's was not to a correct tooth form to match the worms, and the worms varied in tooth form, (maybe they used different suppliers).

 

Background....

 

K's got the worm pitch slightly wrong for the DP of the gear they chose, the DP should have matched Romford in practice. It may have been down to contraction of the plastic after moulding.

 

If you have a running K's motor that you can trust, then Ultrascale list pretty near replacements in DP series, or you can replace with a Mod series gear of the nearest diameter.

 

In either case they do matching high quality plastic worms in at least two shaft sizes, and sleeves can be fitted for odd sizes. It will need a bit of adjusting of the motor position to get the mesh right. The Ultrascale gears have a grubscrew version of each gear.

 

Markits still make Romford gears, to a higher standard, and the 40:1 type usually can fit the space the K's gear used, but a sleeve will be needed if the worm has a 3/32 shaft, as late K's use a smaller metric shaft. If it is the K's with the moulded gearbox, then cut that away.

 

This all assumes you are retaining the general arrangement of the motor and gears, but you can just change to a modern motor and gear box with new gears like High Level or Branchlines etc.

There are perfectly sound running late model K's motor around, it was just it was a lottery as to whether it worked at all.

Stephen.

[hayfield]

Thanks for all the replies, if it were to be used on a layout, then I would then use a Mashima motor. It will potter about on my shelf layout when its not on a display shelf.

 

I hear what you say about K's motors, this one is working. Whilst it has Romford wheels if I can I would like to keep this motor and gear set if possiable.

 

I may try and remove the gears and axles, degrease them and the bearings and give it 1 more try. If that does not work then I guess I will try and fit a set of Romfords.

[melmerby]

 

Trouble is that the gear is a push fit plastic one that fits the axle and has come loose. I have tried drilling two holes through the boss on to the axle and dropped both super glue through one hole and epoxy through the other. Neither has worked.

 

 

 

Must have been more than one type as the ones I had were all metal and you could take the worm off and replace with another and the gear was brass.

 

Keith

[hayfield]

Must have been more than one type as the ones I had were all metal and you could take the worm off and replace with another and the gear was brass.

 

Keith

 

Keith

 

I think these were the last type they used with the smaller HMP motor which had a built in motor mount.

[bertiedog]

I was identifying the motor from the Poster's description, as the last type where the end had a moulded on gearbox, these were supplied with a metal gearwheel and a plastic gear wheel at different times, and usually had a plastic worm, and plastic gear with a D shaped profile axle. The gear simply pushed on to the axle.

 

The modern motor previously had a plain end with two extensions and was delivered with plastic worms, brass worms, and steel worms at different times.

 

The plastic gears were usually the D shaped hole for the axle with the full length flat, an appallingly bad piece of engineering.

 

Other the years the gears were most commonly a steel worm with a brass gear, I think from memory 64 DP imperial series, usually matching Romford pitch. The tooth forms of K's were all over the place, involute form, straight face cut, and straight spur gears engaged with a worm.

 

Early K's gears pressed on or soldered, later grub screws were used, then the infamous D shaped axle.

The worms also varied in tooth form, some V form, some square bottom, a lot eccentric to the shaft hole.

 

The moulded gears were quite reasonable, but the worms pitch did not seem to match the gear DP, I think due to shrinkage of the plastic, but they a D centred and useless off K's axles.

 

Keyser's must have broken all records over the 40 odd years they made kits with the legions of variations and changes of details to the Motors, Axles, and Wheels.

 

Items like the crankpins remained relatively consistent in design. The wheels came in at least twenty types, with many varieties of the "mark" motors, the devil is in the detail like moving holes and brush-gear positions.

 

Stephen.

[melmerby]

Thanks Stephen

 

And in all their incarnations from what I have seen K's kits were less than satisfactory quality wise.

 

The motors I had, in several sizes but the same general design, were double ended two magnet type which were also used in other models.

They were held in place in the chassis by one very short 6BA (I think) screw

I even had one for a slot car which had more robust brushes rather than the tubular type in the K's kits.

 

Keith

[bertiedog]

Too right! but don't be put of assembling a K's, they can be corrected for all the problems, but wheels and motors are a major niggle, I know few all K's parts locos in running order, apart from some display ones I built, forced to use all the original parts. I have seen others, but good runners are rare. K's could not within the cost base, supply decent parts, and were in the hand of bad suppliers of parts at times.

 

Wills Finecast bypassed it by doing mainly bodies only, other makes like Gem, (original not current maker) simplified the chassis etc, using in house cast parts which were difficult to get to run true. Nu-cast, at first, compounded the problems with inaccurate castings as well, the GN Atlantic boiler rivalled bananas, and the tender had different wheel spacing on each side.....

 

Stephen

[bahram]

I thoroughly agree about what has been said about Ks kits, but to this day I have one loco with the original gears, motor (Ks MklI), still working in an O4. One good test for a Ks motor is to run it on a bench and if it runs hot, bin it. Re the GN Atlantic I know of only one in captivity that works, and that was a made by modeller in Cumbria some thirty years ago, I think his name was John MacKay of the Border Model Railway Society, who built it with massive surgery. I do not agree that the actual kit was bad, basic yes, but could be made into a nice model if it is detailed. I remember building a Wills K3 and had to send some parts back because of pithing in the casting and in general just out of shape. Wills sent new parts with an apology which from memory they said that moulds were "now getting past their best". As far as the old Gem kits were concerned trying building a D34 tender or a J36 tender, they were the best of three falls or a knockout to get the coal rails to meet. Just remember one thing lads, back in the late 60s and 70s that was the standard of the manufacturers then and we were very grateful for these kits, also available in those days were the brass locos from Eames along with their hand-cut kits range, and if you did not like anything that was offered you could stick with Triang and Hornby Dublo!

[hayfield]

Sorry for the initial poor description of the motor, it has a brass worm and plastic gear, I have stripped the wheels , degreased everything, re-assembled everything and tried dripping epoxy down the holes. Fingers crossed.

 

I have a few K's locos still running with mk 1 or are they mk2 motors, in fact I brought a Hornby Dublo chassis off Ebay with Romford wheels a K's mk1 (or 2) 5 pole motor with a flywheel and home made brake gear. Runs sweet as a nut and is destined to go under a Wills G6.

 

The Wills and Gem kits seemed better quality, but once all the parts were were added to the cost they were much dearer. K's certainly were more affordable and complete kits.

[melmerby]

I thoroughly agree about what has been said about Ks kits, but to this day I have one loco with the original gears, motor (Ks MklI), still working in an O4. One good test for a Ks motor is to run it on a bench and if it runs hot, bin it. Re the GN Atlantic I know of only one in captivity that works, and that was a made by modeller in Cumbria some thirty years ago, I think his name was John MacKay of the Border Model Railway Society, who built it with massive surgery. I do not agree that the actual kit was bad, basic yes, but could be made into a nice model if it is detailed. I remember building a Wills K3 and had to send some parts back because of pithing in the casting and in general just out of shape. Wills sent new parts with an apology which from memory they said that moulds were "now getting past their best". As far as the old Gem kits were concerned trying building a D34 tender or a J36 tender, they were the best of three falls or a knockout to get the coal rails to meet. Just remember one thing lads, back in the late 60s and 70s that was the standard of the manufacturers then and we were very grateful for these kits, also available in those days were the brass locos from Eames along with their hand-cut kits range, and if you did not like anything that was offered you could stick with Triang and Hornby Dublo!

 

I bought a K's 70 series 48XX and trailer coach. The original motor ran hot and the loco, which would never fit together properly, was dis-assembled and re-assembled several times before ending up in the spares box after I managed to break one of the unique driving wheels.

The trailer like-wise was never true although I have lately managed to improve it somewhat and have started to make up an interior of sorts and put the correct pattern bogies on it.

 

The couple of Wills kits I made (bodies only in those days of course) fitted together quite well. Maybe it would have been better if K's had concentrated on getting the quality of the bodies right and made them to fit ready to run chassis.

A problem, I suppose, was that the wheelbase of the chassis would have to be a compromise due to the limited variants available from Triang and HD.

 

Keith

[Metropolitan]

Thanks for all the replies, if it were to be used on a layout, then I would then use a Mashima motor. It will potter about on my shelf layout when its not on a display shelf.

 

I hear what you say about K's motors, this one is working. Whilst it has Romford wheels if I can I would like to keep this motor and gear set if possiable.

 

I may try and remove the gears and axles, degrease them and the bearings and give it 1 more try. If that does not work then I guess I will try and fit a set of Romfords.

 

 

Trouble is, John, it won't just potter about. It'll go at 250 mph with poor low speed control! Believe me!

[hayfield]

The second go at glueing the gear to the axle seems to have worked. The loco now can propell its self (no tender yet) without coupling both drivers.

 

Ok the K's motor and gears are not the best, it will not crawl along the track very slowly, but before I give the wheels a good clean, adjust the pickups and re-oil it goes quite slowly.

 

Thanks for all the help and advice