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Kovacjr
1st Class Member
Lakewood NJ
Foreman
Posts:372
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 | | 08/05/2008 10:08 AM |
| First I need to preceed this message with this.
This thread is meant to bring to light some issues that have come up and some fixes on how to repair them. If you think this is here to bash Accucraft it is not. If you do not have a good input on the subject PLEASE KEEP YOUR COMMENTS TO YOURSELF.
Well since after 2 hours of running I loosened the one crosshead pin enough to bend the rod I had to tear it down to replace the bolts and straighten the rod back. Here is the new bolts I turned without the nuts that are on order.
Since I knew there was a clicking sound coming from all the bushings I decided to measure all of them, they are all about .010-.013 difference from the crank pins. That means a lot of slop and within just a few hours you will have siginifiant wear on the crank pins as I do.
Here is the amount of clearance that is on my bushings.
As you can see from the light reflection there is a defined ridge already worn into the crank pins from the main rods. So far after 2 hours of run time I have a .005 groove worn into the pin. After another 10 runs at the current wear rate it would be at about .0125 At 20 runs at about a .025 groove. At this point the threads from the retaining bolt will start to show on the outside. Now this wear is only on 180 degrees of the pin to the pin will continue to oval itself out, along with the bushing already ovaled out on mine.
According to Accucraft my loco is the only one with these issues as no one else had checked or called. I inspected 2 other 2nd run 4-4-0's and both of them are the same as mine. Neither of the 2 people had run the locos more than once so far and the bushings were just as bad. Accucraft seems not to want to change the design of these bushings since they do not get any complaints. I have noticied that on my older Accucraft locos the bushings and rods were still very tight. The newer design locos seems to all have oversized holes for the crank pins as on the C19 or Cabfoward where some people already made new bushings or installed roller bearings. If anyone else has the same issues please voice it as no one is being heard on the issues out there untilafter the parts are going to be long gone. As it is already they have no replacement parts 4-4-0 until they get enough requests for a part. Almost 260 were built and all were shipped but I think 1 or 2 units.
Some time after this orignal post that was locked and today Cliff has been working with the factory to have new main rods and crossheads made to replace the orignal ones in a design similar to the Mogul. If you still would like replacement pins to use the factory corssheads uyou can contact me offline still for a set at 40.00.. The replacements I was told are a few months out as the request was just sent to the factory.
Here is what it should look like.
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Jason Kovac
Lakewood, NJ | |
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