DavidParry

Hi Neal Just bought a Collet and also found the wires trapped - so did take my Dremmel and ground out channels below and up the front of the aluminium cast block. Then found that the pick-ups on the loco were poor so added wipers within the tender and wired them to the underplate pickup points. Also, had to fit a wired mini decoder (Lenz mini silver) so I can save space and add more weight for better traction! Runs well now!!! Seems many of us have significant issues with Bachmann chassis (sometimes very poor) quality. David

I'm having same problem with the 108 set as most of you! Loco ran extremely well for about a year then went into "random" mode! It would suddenly stop, go into reverse then forward again. I corrected this by soldering wires across the wipers from the bogie pickups which corrected the "balance" problem. Fine for some months but now it's back to the old problem. Have cleaned the wheels and axle bearings, added wires to the trailing bogie but still the same problem - although not so bad! I have now added fine brass pickups on the trailing bogie which doesn't seem to help much. Next I removed the motor housing and find the brush contacts are not soldered but power is applied through brass wiper contacts which lightly press against them. Maybe this could cause the problem! Any thoughts please? David