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Heljan class 17


M. Jones
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  • 5 weeks later...
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25 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

I think I'm right in saying that no Clayton in BR service ever carried Rail Blue with the small yellow panels, as currently preserved.

 

Does anyone know to the contrary?

 

Fully agree that the scheme is very attractive though!

 

John.

 

Just looked in my copy of @tony6710's "The Clayton Type 1 Bo-Bo Diesel-Electric Locomotives - British Railways Class 17: Development, Design and Demise" (an excellent book by the way) and he concurs with your view. The livery history of all class 17s is listed, there is Green, Green Small Yellow end, Green Full Yellow end and Blue Full Yellow end.


Roy

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1 hour ago, Roy Langridge said:

 

Just looked in my copy of @tony6710's "The Clayton Type 1 Bo-Bo Diesel-Electric Locomotives - British Railways Class 17: Development, Design and Demise" (an excellent book by the way) and he concurs with your view. The livery history of all class 17s is listed, there is Green, Green Small Yellow end, Green Full Yellow end and Blue Full Yellow end.


Roy

 

Thanks Roy.

 

The book looks a good one, and might go on my Christmas list!

 

I suspect that the BSYP scheme was only done by Derby and Swindon, as I can't think of anything overhauled at Crewe, Doncaster, or St. Rollox (for the Claytons) done this way. Ditto Eastleigh, remembering that the early 7 or so of the 73/1's were pianted in BSYP by Vulcan Foundry when built, but there weren't any 33's, 71's, 73's or 74's overhauled to that scheme as far as I'm aware.

 

John.

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  • 3 months later...

May I ask, has anyone replaced their original motor with another, new, Heljan motor?

 

Seeing a few replaced with a Mashima 1624 motor and regretting not reading this thread before I bought the new Heljan motor.

 

Ran mine on my new layout for the first time in many months and the motor burnt out / has shorted. Always been a poor runner, should have returned it at the time (d'oh). Took it apart and motor definitely the problem. Btw appears to me model #1721 (hopefully means it was a later batch? I bought from Rails in mid 2019, new).

 

Heljan are such a mystery to me...their Metropolitan Bo-Bo is my favourite model and incredible quality. Almost everything about this Class 17 is horrendous in comparison!

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9 hours ago, drt7uk said:

May I ask, has anyone replaced their original motor with another, new, Heljan motor?

 

Seeing a few replaced with a Mashima 1624 motor and regretting not reading this thread before I bought the new Heljan motor.

 

Ran mine on my new layout for the first time in many months and the motor burnt out / has shorted. Always been a poor runner, should have returned it at the time (d'oh). Took it apart and motor definitely the problem. Btw appears to me model #1721 (hopefully means it was a later batch? I bought from Rails in mid 2019, new).

 

Heljan are such a mystery to me...their Metropolitan Bo-Bo is my favourite model and incredible quality. Almost everything about this Class 17 is horrendous in comparison!

Mine is ref. 1700 from the first batch. When these first appeared, what you describe was a common problem; in fact universal. I tested mine, watching carefully and it soon ran very hot. Heljan investigated the problem and provided complete new chassis. Hatton’s lists them all as unavailable from 1700 to 1729, oddly missing only 1721. According to Model Rail Database, 1721 appeared in the 2020 catalogue, so it is indeed from a later batch.

 

It’s odd that the problem should surface again. I doubt that a replacement chassis would still be available but I would approach Rails and, if Rails can’t sort it out, try a PM to Ben Jones. The locomotive might be well out of guarantee but a company such as Heljan should be concerned enough about its reputation to help. Even out of guarantee, you should be entitled to repair or refund. Please let us know how you get on.

 

Although things are improving, Heljan is often criticised on detail* but its mechanisms are very impressive. The Class 17 was an exception to the rule.

 

* Before anyone mentions it, the over-wide 47 “Tubby Duff” was a bit more than a detail.

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12 hours ago, No Decorum said:

Mine is ref. 1700 from the first batch. When these first appeared, what you describe was a common problem; in fact universal. I tested mine, watching carefully and it soon ran very hot. Heljan investigated the problem and provided complete new chassis. Hatton’s lists them all as unavailable from 1700 to 1729, oddly missing only 1721. According to Model Rail Database, 1721 appeared in the 2020 catalogue, so it is indeed from a later batch.

 

It’s odd that the problem should surface again. I doubt that a replacement chassis would still be available but I would approach Rails and, if Rails can’t sort it out, try a PM to Ben Jones. The locomotive might be well out of guarantee but a company such as Heljan should be concerned enough about its reputation to help. Even out of guarantee, you should be entitled to repair or refund. Please let us know how you get on.

 

Although things are improving, Heljan is often criticised on detail* but its mechanisms are very impressive. The Class 17 was an exception to the rule.

 

* Before anyone mentions it, the over-wide 47 “Tubby Duff” was a bit more than a detail.

 

Thank you that's very helpful. I've got a new motor from Peter Spares, was only £20 so willing to give soldering it on a go and see how I get on. If that fails I might contact Rails / Heljan - can I ask, who is Ben Jones, does he work at Rails or Heljan? I've been in touch with Kim before at Heljan

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2 hours ago, drt7uk said:

 

Thank you that's very helpful. I've got a new motor from Peter Spares, was only £20 so willing to give soldering it on a go and see how I get on. If that fails I might contact Rails / Heljan - can I ask, who is Ben Jones, does he work at Rails or Heljan? I've been in touch with Kim before at Heljan

Ben Jones is Heljan’s UK rep. He contributes here as 61661, so could be contacted by PM.

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2 hours ago, drt7uk said:

 

Thank you that's very helpful. I've got a new motor from Peter Spares, was only £20 so willing to give soldering it on a go and see how I get on. If that fails I might contact Rails / Heljan - can I ask, who is Ben Jones, does he work at Rails or Heljan? I've been in touch with Kim before at Heljan

 

If fitting a new motor, check also the bearings at the tops of the gear towers. Another modeller here in Melbourne found the real problem was the bearings weren't inserted correctly, and thus were causing unnecessary friction, binding the whole drive from the motor, and consequently causing the overheating and failure. His early class 17 models are still running with their original motors.

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This is absolutely the problem,I rectified mine years ago after mine burnt ,replaced with a mashima motor and then removed the gear towers and split apart ,removed the brass thrust washer and filed it thinner as it was too thick and refitted it , do both bogies…it has run fine ever since.

the thrust washer is too thick and puts strain on the motor as explained previously.

 

 

 

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Do not be afraid of taking your Heljan chassis apart. They are just clip together. The only soldering needed might be the wires from the new motor to the plug into the circuit board. Even then, saw if you can reuse the original one fitted to the burnt out motor. 

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3 hours ago, cheesysmith said:

Do not be afraid of taking your Heljan chassis apart. They are just clip together. The only soldering needed might be the wires from the new motor to the plug into the circuit board. Even then, saw if you can reuse the original one fitted to the burnt out motor. 

 

Spot on, and if you are rebuilding a bogie tower, do one at a time so you have a reference for how it should be.

 

I also found it useful to do it that way when I sorted my first Class 17 as you could feel the improvement between the two by rotating the drive by hand.

 

Roy

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Thanks for all your advice. I'm finding one of the bogie towers too stiff to move when connected to the new motor...clearly something I've done wrong but frankly I've lost patience with it so I've decided to let that bogie free wheel.

 

It runs well now but of course there's a loss of traction, however I've put Bullfrog snot on two of the motorised wheels to make up for the lost of friction. Still means 6 wheels have pickups.

 

Even more sacrilegious, I put the buffers back on with a tiny bit of UHU as I just can't be bothered fiddling around any more (having previously wasted money on replacement caps). 

 

But I've kept all the parts in a zip lock bag so maybe in the distant future when my rage levels have subsided and I've forgiven the designer for their idiotic design I'll give it another go.

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2 hours ago, drt7uk said:

...

 

Even more sacrilegious, I put the buffers back on with a tiny bit of UHU as I just can't be bothered fiddling around any more (having previously wasted money on replacement caps). 

 

But I've kept all the parts in a zip lock bag so maybe in the distant future when my rage levels have subsided and I've forgiven the designer for their idiotic design I'll give it another go.

 

When I fiddled with my one and only example (yes I know they usually went around in pairs! :D ), I ground/filed the corners of the chassis away so that when the buffers were reassembled, they could stay that way and the chassis could slide off past them.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 16/02/2022 at 00:26, BRIAN T said:

This is absolutely the problem,I rectified mine years ago after mine burnt ,replaced with a mashima motor and then removed the gear towers and split apart ,removed the brass thrust washer and filed it thinner as it was too thick and refitted it , do both bogies…it has run fine ever since.

the thrust washer is too thick and puts strain on the motor as explained previously.

 

 

 

 

I've just done this with my second Clayton, an ebay purchase in blue with supposedly a replacement chassis that was slow and screechy. It worked a treat!

 

Interesting that the "brass thrust washer" which I take to be the bearings at the top of the gear tower, don't in all cases seem to be a problem. They weren't in my Clayton no.1, one of the Ribble Cement jobs. The remedy in that case being the removal of all the white grease, and careful re-assembly.

 

One might have expected the brass thrust washers to be consistent, or almost so, in manufacture, and I wonder if the tightness problem is in fact variations in the moulding of the gear tower itself? Either way, the filing of the washer is just the job. You can tell if the problem is sorted by looking at the top of the gear tower, with the two parts coming together with no extra pressure if  it is OK, then rotate by hand using the drive shaft to confirm that movement is free.

 

I have another chassis, bought as a spare on ebay with very slow running, to attack next, a job for this afternoon!

 

John.

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Folllowing on from my earlier post today, my third Clayton chassis now also runs properly!

 

The problem with this one was excess grease which when cleared helped a lot. Having the thing in bits I also eased off the bearings in one of the bogie towers.

 

The worm shaft has at each end the connector for the drive shaft, and in both cases these connectors were quite loose, so I cleaned them and the shaft off with track cleaning fluid, then replaced using a bit of superglue, which has made them a lot firmer.

 

So I now have a spare functioning chassis, and if I can find some bits am very tempted to follow in the footsteps of Jessy 1692 with his DHP1, as seen here -

 

John.

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10 minutes ago, John Tomlinson said:

Folllowing on from my earlier post today, my third Clayton chassis now also runs properly!

 

The problem with this one was excess grease which when cleared helped a lot. Having the thing in bits I also eased off the bearings in one of the bogie towers.

 

The worm shaft has at each end the connector for the drive shaft, and in both cases these connectors were quite loose, so I cleaned them and the shaft off with track cleaning fluid, then replaced using a bit of superglue, which has made them a lot firmer.

 

So I now have a spare functioning chassis, and if I can find some bits am very tempted to follow in the footsteps of Jessy 1692 with his DHP1, as seen here -

 

John.

Evening John, I'd love to see you have a go at DHP1, it's been a fair old while since I did mine now so memories are a little hazy around parts of it as I made it up as I went along.  If you need any scans if the plans I used just drop me a message.

All the best

James

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  • 4 months later...

My local shop took delivery of the new class 17's today and has been advised to return them after they tested several to discover that the led light for the headcode box only lights up half the headcode. They checked them all and it appears that its a design fault where Heljan have replaced the old buld with a small led. 

He contacted Gaugemaster  and was advised to remove these from sale awaiting return instructions.

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Have they not always been like this? I have an early-release blue D8507 with small LED headcode lighting and the light source shines through a small aperture in the centre of the headcode display, giving a most unsatisfactory result......

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25 minutes ago, Halvarras said:

Have they not always been like this? I have an early-release blue D8507 with small LED headcode lighting and the light source shines through a small aperture in the centre of the headcode display, giving a most unsatisfactory result......

 

Absolutely: they have been like that since day 1 of the first releases.

I bought a replacement/upgrade kit to improve mine. 

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23 minutes ago, No Decorum said:

I note that Bachmann’s new 37 has two LEDs lighting the headcode. Accurascale’s Deltic, however, has four: one behind each character.

 
Sorry but both of Bachmann’s new 37’’s are 37/4 ‘s with plated over headcode with 2x led and thus no 4 character code.So can’t understand where you’re coming from on this.

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