I acquired this one recently. It did not run well; very hesitant, and prone to stopping with the gear in the same position on each revolution of the driving wheels. I dismantled it and found numerous interesting features, any one of which would probably be enough to put it off its stride, including:
no pickup from loco wheels due to a connector on the wheel retaining baseplate which never connected motor cradle screws loose swarf in the gear chain gearwheel on rear axle misaligned twist in one connecting rod, leading to binding unfinished surfaces on connecting rods and coupling rods, leading to binding
Basically, it's a lovely model and the parts are interestingly designed and made (look at the nuts on the bolts that hold the big end of the connecting rod together), but when it comes to assembly the cosmetic stuff has obviously received attention whereas the parts that make it run well haven't even been completely manufactured before they were not quite correctly assembled.
On the plus side, following some work over the weekend it's now running much better at very low speed (anyone can make something run at top speed), so this is progress. As long as I don't break too many more of the cosmetic parts in the process of troubleshooting.
It's now got much better looking wheels too thanks to the kindness of my friend John who's taken down the absolutely gigantic flanges to something less unsightly.
Plenty more to do. And I have yet to damage the pony truck on this one :-)
BTW here's a comparison of a rod as supplied and after a bit of cleaning up (excuse the filaments from my glass fibre brush).
- Read more...
- 10 comments
- 896 views