Hornby R2630 46146 'The Rifle Brigade' disintegrating motor block

[60800]

Evening all,

   I've recently had a Hornby R2630 'OO' Royal Scot No.46146 'The Rifle Brigade' in for repair with driveshaft issues. On close inspection, the drifeshaft / motor casing / DCC board mount casting on this loco has suffered from the same rot that previously affected a number of class 31's. The sides of the casting have caved inwards and crumbled away, leaving the first set of gears free to bounce around. I have bodged some new plasticard bearing toppers for the first set of gears which is being held in with contact adhesive. I'd recommend that owners of R2630 check their locos for visible cracking or inward collapse of this casting.

 

My two Royal Scots - R2664 (6100) and R3018 (46115) are so far unaffected  

[farren]

Oh bu99er better have a look at mine then. Fortunately I only have 2. But I have 5 rebuilt patriots. which are all but the same.

[5 C]

I have several Hornby Scots and Patriots, some of which display this issue.

 

I've never been certain as to whether this is due to mazak rot or just poor design. The "legs" of the retainer are very thin and I wonder whether they're of sufficient thickness to withstand the stresses of the worm and gear wheel moving around. The anchoring point, the post of which can also break off the main chassis block, is some distance from the point at which it's at most strain. The design of this motor retainer appears to be unique in the Hornby steam range, with all others being much shorter and anchored much closer to the gear wheel.

 

Irritatingly, it's the one motor retainer that Hornby don't do as a spare (I emailed Margate to enquire). I've managed to acquire used spares from eBay over time and have investigated modifying the retainer from the M7 (X9580) as a possible fix as well as fabricating some kind of strengthening sleeve to go over the top.

 

Andy

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I have several Hornby Scots and Patriots, some of which display this issue.

 

I've never been certain as to whether this is due to mazak rot or just poor design. The "legs" of the retainer are very thin and I wonder whether they're of sufficient thickness to withstand the stresses of the worm and gear wheel moving around. The anchoring point, the post of which can also break off the main chassis block, is some distance from the point at which it's at most strain. The design of this motor retainer appears to be unique in the Hornby steam range, ...

Although the generic layout featuring this poor concept of the securing point well away from where the load comes on, providing a lever to work the thing loose, is found on all the earlier China tooled steam introductions I have seen. I glue the motors down to relieve the load on this component, it's marginal as a method. Didn't get fixed until late 2006 with the introduction of the Britannia which secured the motor to the block beneath very satisfactorily.

 

Another post on here identified the T9 as having a similarly particularly weak design of combined motor clamp and worm cover, with a 'distant' attachment point and small cross section of metal midway along the piece. Maybe Hornby need tackling on this one, for beefed up designs to be made available as spares?

[MikeParkin65]

Is there a common factor covering the models that appear to exhibit 'issues' with their chassis? As far as I am aware we have had Classes 31 and 50, the 9F and now the Royal Scot. Were they all manufactured in the same year?

[Mad McCann]

No. These were produced over a period between 2003 and 2007.

 

D.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Got around to inspecting what started out as an R2726 Patriot. I have 'vulnerablised' mine by sawing off the top of the front clamp where the decoder socket used to be, in order to install more lead over the coupled wheels for proper class 7P traction. (Did this knowing that glueing in the motor will work if the clamp fails.) No trouble evident there, the cut face of the mazak bright and shiny.