What did you fix today?!

[Kamome]

Nice work. I applied Kato short couplers to my Woki and managed to fit a knuckle to the Deki, although mine is without its buddy. 

 

It does leave a slight dilemma as to what to use the other case for. Mine is currently housing my Tomix Shiki, but there’s still space for other stuff. 

[cteno4]

What dilemma? Buy more trains.

 

jeff

[disturbman]

22 hours ago, ED75-775 said:

I won’t lie, these MA coupler springs are the worst, because they’re not actually ‘springs’, they’re little pieces of plastic!

The annoying part is that they are clear plastic, which can make it a challenge to find them again, but other manufacturers use similar solutions with thin copper stripes and it's not much better as they are very easy to unshape.

[Welshbloke]

https://www.instagram.com/p/DAqA7BIoNca/?igsh=MTJ2am9xdDF6NmFyMg==

 

This ancient Minitrix Ivatt 2-6-0 had a tight spot and a click running in reverse, especially annoying as I'd previously bought and fitted a coreless motor/flywheel kit from Tramfabriek. Today's periodic attempt to solve this pinned it down to the quartering (as the coupling rods weren't sitting level). As the rear axle is easiest to get at I started by pulling the crankpins out (after which it ran as well as Minitrix models are supposed to).

 

Rather than leap into trying to shift the wheels on their axle, I noticed that with the crankpins pulled out the holes for them were "out" from the rods by the same amount both sides. Minitrix locos have the driving wheels geared together with the rods as a cosmetic addition, the result being rather like a timing belt or chain on an engine (if one gear is out of time then it won't go well). In this case dropping the rear axle out and refitting it in the right mesh solved the problem. A quick check followed by refitting the crankpins and it's silent.

 

Short version: if you're servicing a Minitrix loco then do not remove the driving wheels! Taking the motor out and giving the chassis a bath in an ultrasonic cleaner or plastic-safe contact cleaner (followed by turning the wheels back and forth to shake the dirt out) will do the job without having to realign everything afterwards.

[Tonytramman]

trying to fix this, gears are binding so looks like I need to get into them! I'm not sure how to split the chassis but I will find a way, most likely looks like prizing it apart... 

[cteno4]

Yikes no screws holding the two halves apart?

 

jeff

[brill27mcb]

Hi Tony,

 

This looks like the Kato super-small Hiroshima LEX 1000-series powered bogie? A ruler next to it in the picture would show how really small it is. How you got it stripped down just to this point would be an interesting series of pictures! I have a number of these models, but I no longer do all-day setups at get-togethers and shows, so I have no idea how durable these amazing drives are in the long run. 

 

One bright side to this is that some of the red or blue My Tram basic models can be sourced so cheaply right now (at least into the U.S.) that it's worth it to buy one and think of it as buying two replacement powered bogies!

 

Rich K.

Edited January 22 by brill27mcb

[bc6]

I got my Tomix track cleaner up and running once again. The track cleaner is at least 10 years old. I converted it to DCC a while back when I was into DCC. I misplaced the parts for DC operations to work with my current DC test track. I found the parts on ebay and finally sat down to do the fix. It took me about 5 minutes and the track cleaner is back in operation.

Edited January 23 by bc6

[Tonytramman]

17 hours ago, cteno4 said:

Yikes no screws holding the two halves apart?

 

jeff

nope, no screws..

[Tonytramman]

11 hours ago, brill27mcb said:

Hi Tony,

 

This looks like the Kato super-small Hiroshima LEX 1000-series powered bogie? A ruler next to it in the picture would show how really small it is. How you got it stripped down just to this point would be an interesting series of pictures! I have a number of these models, but I no longer do all-day setups at get-togethers and shows, so I have no idea how durable these amazing drives are in the long run. 

 

One bright side to this is that some of the red or blue My Tram basic models can be sourced so cheaply right now (at least into the U.S.) that it's worth it to buy one and think of it as buying two replacement powered bogies!

 

Rich K.

 

Hi Rich,

yes it is the LEX 1000, he picture makes it look much bigger than it is!

I haven't thought of doing a how too, the basics are, remove power bogie (cab) end, just pull it apart from main body.

remove body, all noted in the instruction sheet, it is after those jobs it gets interesting though. 

basically though everything comes apart as its all held together with clips, they are small and fiddley.

I hadn't thought about the my trams as replacement parts, so might have to think about that if I can't sort it, also thinking about going DCC going forward...

 

Tony

[Tonytramman]

A further pic of the currently disassembled tram to show size and parts, also managed to fix unitram point this morning as it wasn’t throwing properly in one direction on one track. 

[Tonytramman]

turns out they are easy to split, cleaned and re Assembled however still seems to be a short, very strange, they start to run then want to go in the opposite direction! Edit: now fixed.

Edited Friday at 07:13 PM by Tonytramman

[cteno4]

So how did you split them just slowly pry around wirh a screwdriver?

 

what fixed the odd issue in the end? Motor get flipped on one truck?

 

jeff

[Tonytramman]

Jeff, 

yeah just ease the two halves apart and voila! Be careful not to lose the clear light insert and gears, speaking of which, I had to remove one from each truck to get it working!! Mist strange but it has solved the issue. I did forget to re insert headlight plastic but that will have to be done another time…