Back in December I rashly thought I'd cracked the Dean Goods...

However the saga's had a few twists since then, and it's probably worth documenting them for the sake of completeness.

Although I was initially happy with the running of the Dean, it slowly deteriorated to the point where the worm and main gear were struggling to maintain mesh. Dismantling showed quite a lot of slop in the gearbox, and I was concerned I might have reamed out the gearbox's axle bearings a touch too enthusiastically when initially fiddling with the running. Frustrated (again), I set the model aside for a few weeks.

Last week I ordered a completely new GB4 gearbox and assembled it on Friday. This time I was careful to ream out the axles only a smidge, but after assembly, the chassis was still acceptable free-running when the grub screw on the main gear wasn't tightened. By saturday I had it trundling around at a very slow crawl, and was confident enough to solder the outside brake rods back on. The chassis was running a tiny bit noisier than before, but on the other hand it was smooth at all speeds, and I was (rashly?) confident that the noise would ease as the gears bedded in.

Today I did a bit more tweaking of the pickups, trying to eliminate a slight tendency to stall which hadn't been there before, and then all of a sudden the running deteriorated completely - just a few wheel turns and then a ghastly grinding sound. After poking around with it for an hour or two I noticed that the main gear was already showing excessive wear ... from less than a weekend's running? Blimey. Inspection of the gear from the earlier gearbox showed similar but less pronounced wear ... so that's two gearboxes, only one built by me, but both of which have gradually given up after only moderate running. I might be able to salvage something from the parts of the two, but it's a bit surprising to have to do this. Is the mesh too tight, as designed, or am I doing something wrong?

Of my earlier kit built chassis, only the King and the City have gearboxes that I assembled myself ... and those have both been fine, and ran smoothly from the outset. The Castle, 1366 and C2X all have fully-assembled DJH gearboxes and have been trouble-free.

I know from experience that it's all to easy to get disheartened by these types of problem, which is why I try to make sure I've got a variety of projects on the go, in the hope that at least one of them will be moving in the right direction! After all, it's a hobby, it's supposed to be enjoyable. On the other hand, unless we keep biting off new challenges, we can lose interest. The only snag with new challenges is that sooner or later we'll hit a series of setbacks, and if we're not careful, these can really sap the enthusiasm. Fortunately I can view the Dean as a long-term problem which I am determined to solve, if only for my own curiosity. Of course, that'll be right around the time someone announces a new RTR version...