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.