RobinofLoxley

OK so set them 90 degrees apart. They have square centres and seem to be a good fit - quite hard to push home but not requiring a hammer! I will post success/failure in a day or so. Many thanks. No sign of axle cracks, I had the whole thing in bits to have a look; I think the old bushes had cracked, the loco had been stored not used (allegedly, but no sign of discolouration on the wheel contact surfaces so maybe true)

Only recently I was reading about how easy the chassis was to reassemble when replacing the plastic drive bushes. However I took the precaution of making some notes, but they didnt help me as I have had 2 tries to reassemble but the loco stops after about 1cm as the wheels lock up. Does anyone have a plan of the position all the wheels should be in when reassembled as I could be on trial and error for days. A pair of photos would be beyond useful, thanks

I built my loft layout using 6mm and regret now that I didnt use slightly heavier material. My loft has structural timber everywhere and getting the sections into place was seriously difficult, so i wanted the sections as light as possible. They had to be braced underneath, which I elected to do using planed timber battens screwed from the top surface, so the screws had to be countersunk into the ply. I was careful but over time some of those screws bit through the ply. Building boxy sections in the garage to slot into place would have been beyond my skills! I then found that just jobs like tapping in track pins would be problematic as the ply would 'bounce' transmitting shocks along previously laid track. Bad enough to bounce out point bearers, those little bits of plastic that maintain the gauge of the track on the moving part of the point. I needed quite a bit of bracing and found that some of it interfered with point motor positioning; it shouldnt have but you only need the track to shift a few mm during laying and there you are. Theres a big difference between what professional modellers can achieve and what you can do as a beginner. All my track (well 98%) is down now and the operational side is ok, there is nothing in the operations that is compromised by the choice of 6mm but I think it took me longer to build than it should due to all the work arounds I had to do; and in the future I will have troubles with bowing and flexing of the panels, and then having to do repairs and shore-ups forever. I dont want to be crawling around underneath the layout when I'm 80! If I could do it again, I would change a lot of things and that would included going up to 9mm ply .

I am just dealing with my first split chassis maintenance issue and reading the thread I wondered the following. The white grease referred to above might well be Krytox which is a specialist high temperature lubricant. My Wraysbury Hall has a good quantity inside the body shell and as soon as the spares arrive I will be using some of the spare grease on the non driving wheels where the previous bushes have cracked, but on the driving wheels I'm reluctantly going to stick to Powerlube as Im not sure of the conductive properties of the aforementioned white grease. While using thin oils generally seems to be the recommendation for loco moving parts, these are going to be easily pushed out of the joints and I wondered if anyone had long term experience with very high viscosity greases instead?

To be honest, when I looked at the performance overall of all my running stock I decided that actually the ringfield overall were the best runners by a mile. i dont have any modern locos. The ringfields will all do 50 laps (about 20 metres each) without derailing and once they get going the hesitations and stops get less and less frequent. I simply put the wheels back on the tenders close enought to have no problems with the gears missing or risking the wheels working loose from their axles. I'm just waiting for the correct axle/wheels to arrive to hopefully fix the last tender then I will have 6 good runners. Compared to the Bachmann locos I have got more recently from auction that can't do a lap without derailing somewhere, I have nothing to complain about. For these I need weights, so I decided to ask on a separate thread about those.

Talk about answering your own queries, i had read the part numbers off the wrong service sheet. But some questions still remain..

Thanks David. Any suggestion where I might obtain suitable spacers please. Sounds like something that might be fitted to most if not all of my tender drives. I have run using different tenders and they are similar. My only trick has been playing with the plates, bending them in a bit to get, as it seemed to me, more pressure on the contact points. I'm really happy with the speed and pulling power of all my tenders, when they are working well. Are you suggesting I should obtain a wheel set for a Saint tender in place of what I have, or just replace the axles using Saint service sheet as a reference for example? I thought all these tenders were similar domensions, but now I have checked I have found that my county class tender is longer than the King, which surely can't be right. My King has a plastic tender frame too. How did you measure your wheel spacing? I dont have any callipers so I will be doing it with a ruler and i take it it's the inside dimension.

I have just finished reconditioning a couple of Coronation spec tenders with Ringfield 3-pole motors. I have now started on a King Class – Charles 1 running No 6010. The tender layout was different, especially the wheels and axles which I needed to replace as they were loose. The central idle pair do not have a full width axle but there are 2 stub axles, one mounted on the cover plate and the other on the motor block. The cover plate item is a removable part the block stub seems fixed. There is no way to identify it as a separate part on the Service sheet. I have bought replacement axles and wheels but they don’t fit properly on the stubs – I am following that up with the supplier but as they run very loose, especially the block stub, I wondered if there was a bush or something between the wheel and the stub. There’s no evidence for it, I may just have the wrong spares. If anyone can throw any light on that I would be grateful. I odered according to the service sheet part numbers. The second question is about the axle setup. Is there a defined spacing to go for? I ask because these locos and tenders all run well round bends but occasionally stop or hesitate on straights. Checking the way the tender sits on straight rails it looks as if there is so much play that if the tender plain wheels are pushed properly onto the rail there is so much of a gap that the traction tyre is nearly missing contact on the track on the opposite side. I have tried easing the wheel set apart, of course the driving side wheel must remain meshed with the other drive gears, but then the non driving side wheel is liable to fall off. Finally, the service sheet shows two collectors for the tender which I don’t have. Surprisingly its run perfectly without them, but I can’t work out how. Should I refit them? Made me think the tender may be from another loco?? I wanted to attach a photo but the site timed out on the upload. Twice.

Thanks Amand. When I have done this (possibly not with the brass gear mentioned above, which I assume is a requirement) I have done part of the strip down then used a G clamp with a nut as you describe glued to one end, I have screwed the new cog into place using the clamp. Cleaned and lubricated as required (though not with IPA I thought that was what my local sold pre lockdown) and reassembled. Loco has alwas run well after until the cog gets loose again. The first time this happened I could see a hairline crack in the cog, but not on subsequent failures. Maybe they are just not visible on each one. I wasn't aware of the collar, is it a feature of all replacement cogs??

Hello folks. I have a number of locos with the above tender drive and as I am operating the locos more and more, having been in 'cold storage' they are failing with the same trouble, namely this pinion gear working loose so that the motor simply spins. Sometimes a rest, i.e cooling down, results in traction again but often not. I have replaced a few but eventually the problem reappears. Is it better to take the locos to a specialist for repair rather than diy? Is it an option to 'weld' them in place with superglue for example? (One motor on a King Class looks as though that has been done but not superglued). Thanks.

Thank you for all the helpful advice. I had been wondering about lubricating the axles having forgotten that they were part of the conducting pathway. After the first rebuild the motor did manage about one turn so I feel that its reassembled correctly and I will check as suggested and let you know what happens. Due to holiday etc its going to be a while No way is this going to be a static model its part of my learning experience and as nothing is broken it will eventually run!!

Yes there is power to the track. Other locos are running ok. This one was running, albeit very badly until I took it to bits

Phil, I believe it is a can motor (similar to a ringfield??). 34etc, I didnt separate the commutator just cleaned the exposed face, which was dirty. I havnt tried to power the motor directly - dont have the facility. I put it back exactly as the drawing showed, no missing springs etc. I pushed the brushes into contact before inserting the springs. There were four small washers on the armature assembly where the drawing showed only two, but its makes no difference including or removing them I also gently lubricated all the turning parts on the chassis.

Hello, First visit to this board. Of course its a problem.... I acquired one of the above recently. It doesnt look as if it has ever run, and when I put it on the layout it was very noisy and slow. I opened it up for lubrication following the service sheet, but when I put it back together, nothing. I dont understand as all I have done is put the bits I took off back n the same places. I went as far as removing the commutator for cleaning thats all. Any ideas?