Mike Riley Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 I have found 2 loose screws on my 4018. One is hidden - under the motor. To check this, remove the housing over the gears and slacken off the screw for the bracket at the rear of the motor (mine was already loose). Then ease out the motor and you will find a screw holding the motor mount to the chassis. This was loose too. This on top of the loose screws on the heavy tanks - at least they are all visible. Most Star owners are unlikely to remove the motor so this is quite a subtle defect. Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robmcg Posted December 7, 2013 Share Posted December 7, 2013 It does reinforce the idea that checking a new model is a good idea. Were these screws very loose or just slightly less than 'snug'? If the models fail after a short time, Hornby will end up finding out only by feedback from unhappy customers, or comments from such as this forum. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matabiau Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 On my Star the screw under the smokebox was very loose, the chassis had a couple of millimeters of movement. Easy to tighten in this case, but there must be other cases harder to get at. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mike Riley Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 It does reinforce the idea that checking a new model is a good idea. Were these screws very loose or just slightly less than 'snug'? If the models fail after a short time, Hornby will end up finding out only by feedback from unhappy customers, or comments from such as this forum. They were very much less than "snug". And a loose screw doesn't tighten itself, over time it becomes looser of course. Mike Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
neal Posted December 8, 2013 Share Posted December 8, 2013 Low frequency vibration whilst on a container ship loosens a lot of things! I had loose screws on my 42xx which meant the pick ups lost contact with the chassis block. Took a while to realise what the problem was. I'm sure that Hornby used to use loc-tite on some fixings. N Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robmcg Posted December 16, 2013 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Good design and materials specification and selection and means that screws should not often need a locking compound, and in fact should survive several assembly-disassembly sequences with losing the ability to stay snug and tight. Not over-tight (which will damage the two parts) or too loose obviously. Length of thread in relation to load, and stress on the joint might mean a locking compound is wise, but in general it shouldn't be needed. I was born and bred fixing British cars and bikes and the world went to the pack when we replaced UNF with metric threads... Nowadays machines aren't meant to be disassembled and re-assembled, they are meant to be replaced. It's called efficiency. If things are poorly assembled in the first place, which very true of British cars and bikes, and appears to be true of some or most recent Hornby models, then you will have to accept it as being bad and regrettable and hope it improves as new factories come into use, or ultimately pay more so that assembly workers are taught better and quality control is more strict. Perhaps Toyota have mastered metric... but I don't like it... (I overtook a 1967 Daimler 250 (Jaguar Mk2 shape) on the road today and felt sorry for the driver as he tooled along at about 55mph with a for sale sign in the rear window, because if it had been a 3.8 Jag I would have wanted to buy it!) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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