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Grant Kerr
Foreman
Australia
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Grant Kerr
Foreman
Australia
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 Posted - 28 Jul 2004 : 10:25:27
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OK. It is now 2.30 in the morning and I have finally got the lead engine out of this thing via the directions. Pulled the motor out of it's gear box housing and was surprised to find no plastic gears. Brass worm and what looks to be bronze gear. There is grease in there but I smeared it about again. Rotated the wheels without the motor attached and sure enough it binds up. That therefore eliminates any gearbox problem so no need to go looking there. At the moment I am going to bed as I have just about driven myself nuts trying to get the tiny little plug reinserted into its receptacle between the rear drivers and the lead wieghts. Must be my round eye fat finger thing because I have the same problem getting electrical connections to go back into place on Asian cars as well. Attack it again in the morning after a bit of sleep and remove the side rods then. Stay tuned
Grant |
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pipelion
Conductor
USA
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Posted - 28 Jul 2004 : 11:32:54
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Grant,
My loco doesn't have this problem, thank God. But as a potential future customer of the Big Boy and a second Challenger I'm interested.
By miss "quartered", do you mean the drivers are not all in the exact correct position in relation to one another? I'll assume you do and respond;
A new bushing thightning the rod's slack, to my understanding, would intensify the need for exact driver positioning. Therefore intensifing the problem.
I've noticed the rod's slop, but thought this was a design move to help with freedom of movement not the reverse, since these are mass assembled locos.
What is your resoning?
Hope you get it back together after repairs.
Allan
PS Had my MTH HUdson up to 108 MPH while holding it inplace so it didn't go airborn. What a rush! Lost a rubber tire and heard a certain clunk of the rods at a certain rpm, but it was the NYC in it's glory. Did it several times and same noise at same rpm. The thing runs clean though and reminds me of a solid quality sewing machine! And I know a "PS" is technically only supposed to be one thought, not a paragraph. |
1:32 1:29 What ever it takes.
Edited by - pipelion on 28 Jul 2004 11:35:21 |
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adlereins
Foreman
1st Class Member
USA
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Posted - 28 Jul 2004 : 21:45:09
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Grant, "veely interistink'" Ran mine at slow speed, got on my knees (not too difficult) and poked an prodded when she stopped due to the bind. Checked the rear driver on the front set and the connecting rod was so tight it made a grating noise when I pushed and pulled on it. I figured that was the problem and didn't even check the other drivers and points where the connecting rods are fastened. I'll have to check again and see if other points are binding as well. I suspect the stamping for the connecting rods might be a little off, but like you said, why not the rear drivers too? Could it be too much sideways slop rather than vertical? Keep us posted on your findings. Always glad to see someone else tear it apart   I'm too chicken
Take Care,
Allen B. |
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adlereins
Foreman
1st Class Member
USA
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Posted - 28 Jul 2004 : 21:50:11
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Bud, just read your post on adding weight. I'll give it a try and see what happens.
Take Care,
Allen B. |
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pipelion
Conductor
USA
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Posted - 28 Jul 2004 : 21:58:20
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Allen,
Your funny!
I've looked at "Allen B." lots of times but just now it hit me, my middle initial is A. So I'm Allan A. and you're Allen B.
How's that for funny?,
Allan A. |
1:32 1:29 What ever it takes.
Edited by - pipelion on 28 Jul 2004 22:13:56 |
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adlereins
Foreman
1st Class Member
USA
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Posted - 28 Jul 2004 : 23:19:26
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Dang! Second AGAIN
Allen B. |
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spodwo
Engineer
1st Class Member
USA
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Posted - 28 Jul 2004 : 23:56:43
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I was running my Challenger really slow tonight seeing if it the front drivers would bind. I couldn't denote this occurring. I will check tomorrow more carefully by running it slow to the point of stopping. I did note on one occassion, that the front drivers were turning and the rear ones were not [the engine was stopped and the front drivers were going, rear ones were not and the engine had no forward movement - the front drivers were slipping]. Odd I thought but then the rear ones kicked in...hmmm...the engine has positraction!
Frankly, my rail line hasn't been maintained well lately but there is no point in that since it's coming down in a couple...
We shall see what happens tomorrow. |
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bud
Foreman
USA
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Posted - 29 Jul 2004 : 07:26:59
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Copied from other post
Just a thought.
Looking at it from a different viewpoint, my front drivers would not turn until the loco got moving.
I thought it was a bind but after checking and greasing/oiling, everything was fairly free.
Still did the same thing and some times the front wheels would spin when they started.
Added weight to the front truck, no more problems and it does not spin anymore.
It could be possible that with all the rubber tires, the front truck does not get enough power, adding weights adds pressure with more contact to the track.
Bud
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Bud Steinhoff
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Grant Kerr
Foreman
Australia
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Posted - 29 Jul 2004 : 09:29:43
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Welp it's way late again. Played with this most of the day. Got it back together first go this morning which kinda tells me not to try doing it at 0230 hrs. It still binds but not as bad. Also I rang Maryland last night and they are aware of the problem. I cannot say yet what they have done to try and fix it but elongating the holes in the connecting rods does not work. Now that I know how to take the lead engine out and put it back again properly I am going to pull it again tomorrow but this time completely out of the loco and apply power to the motor only and see what happens in close up. This will also do something else. It will get the motor away from the PS2 system and be standing on it's own two feet so to speak. I WILL crack this nut yet!
Grant |
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adlereins
Foreman
1st Class Member
USA
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Posted - 29 Jul 2004 : 10:24:26
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| Go get 'em, Grant! |
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pipelion
Conductor
USA
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Posted - 29 Jul 2004 : 10:50:35
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Allen B,
OK I see your reply, is to me.
Allan |
1:32 1:29 What ever it takes.
Edited by - pipelion on 29 Jul 2004 10:50:54 |
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pipelion
Conductor
USA
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Posted - 29 Jul 2004 : 16:34:53
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Pod,
The "front drivers whole assembly" has more slack, in relation to the boiler, this is do the the shape of the arm's whole, that the connecting bolt intersects.
You'll notice this movement on loco reverses especially. Mine(front drivers) appears to leave before the loco moves. But it only moves 30-90 thousanths, then the loco moves. This allows the beast to negotiate tighter curvers than a true scale drivetrain copy would allow.
Saw your post and shot of the Clinchfield on OGR, looks great!
Allan |
1:32 1:29 What ever it takes.
Edited by - pipelion on 29 Jul 2004 19:33:19 |
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Rayman4449
Engineer
USA
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Posted - 01 Aug 2004 : 23:03:13
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I think I may have furthered the progress a little on this. Mine binds too and after looking and playing with the front drivers with the engine suspended with no power, I've found that when you add resistance to the front driver and turn the wheels by applying force on the rear driver, that I can make my drivers lock every time in the same spot as it does on the track. The fireman's side front driver connecting rod is a 6 o'clock and moving towards 5 o'clock.(don't know how else to explain this) when it binds. When you then look at the front driver on the engineer's side, the connecting rod is at 9 o'clock going to 10 o'clock. It seems to me that the front driver is out of phase just enough so that the connecting rod is jamming into driver rod peg. Basically, the front driver isn't being rotated enough by the fireman's sides driver because of the slop. So in theory if I can get the driver to be pulled further ahead by the left connecting rod that it wouldn't bind becuase the peg on the engineer's side would be further past 9 o'clock and therefore allow the engineers connecting rod to smoothly continue to rotate and push the driver around, so to test this, I took the rod screw out of the firemans' front driver and jammed a very small piece of wood between the connecting rod and the driver peg on the left side of the peg. This should result in there being no delay in the fireman's connecting rod from pulling the driver around because the wood is taking up the slack.
My tests so far show almost no catching like before. At the very least it looks like I've found one bind point. And bottom line, that is what I think is causing the binding and that is out of phase driver pegs accentuated by the slop in the rods. I may be wrong, but my engine is running better. At the very least I can confirm that it is connecting rod related. Thanks Grant for eliminating the gearing part. That has saved me/everyone alot of time. I'm going to try and work on this some more in the comming days. My focus will be eliminating slack in certain spaces on the connecting rod. More to come.... |
Need a Non-MTH engine equipped with DCS Protosound 2? I can help.
 Raymond - Gardner, KS
http://www.rayman4449.dynip.com
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Grant Kerr
Foreman
Australia
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Posted - 02 Aug 2004 : 10:09:05
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OK.
Sunday and today messing with this and I can report the following. The quartering is accurate. Least ways on mine it is. I removed the motor block in it's entirety from the engine and that neccesitaed cutting of some wires. Thank god they are colour coded. With the whole unit away from the boiler I was able to turn it any way I wanted and really get a good look at what was happening with this bind. Dissasembled the whole thing to its component parts and slowly reassembled. A problem with the rear drivers is the way the con rods are mounted is on a sleeve over the crank pin. The sleeve is attached to the first valve gear arm and no way to get it of short of taking a steel rivet out and I was not going to do that so I left the motion gear on to check all of the following. I would suggest any one doing this fix to do the same. The rivet is a very hard steel and I don't think breaking it would be conducive to keeping the atmoshere from turning blue in a big hurry. Plus there is no reason to pull the valve gear apart. It is very free on all it's moving parts.
By disconnecting the rear con rods only and leaving the front ones on I was able to finally see what was going on. The rods are a tiny bit long in the hole centres. Plus with the slop in the second driver pin it was accenting the camming over of the lead crank pin and making it lag behind. This occurs at just past 3 o'clock on each side and in each direction. It is a definate thump as it goes over. On looking at the lead driver closer you can see the con rod squeezing down on the crank pin at about 10 degrees off the plane of the rod at the crank pin holes at the shortest point between the two holes. Just for a bit of a check right here I took the lead rods out of the rear engine and fitted them to the front engine to see if this still happened. It did. In the meantime I have been running the rear engine in on its back very slowly for over 12 hrs in each direction and it sounds just like a well oiled clock. No binds what so ever. This led me to get the Vernier calipers out and do some measuring of the driver centres between the 2 engines. The front engine is ever so slightly shorter in the axle centre spacing than the rear engine. It is not a lot. About 10 thou difference between each set of centres and by the time you add it up it is out by about 20 thou. shorter. I suspect that the lead axle and centre axle may be even a tad closer than that but it was hard to check with out scratching the blackened finish with the point of the Verniers. Explains why the rear connecting rods bound up on the lead engine yet don't on the rear engine. So the fix I did was to go find a bit of brass tubular stock and make up 2 shims only for the centre drivers. This tightened up the excessive slop on the centre driver pins and no bind. The lead axle I did not fit shims to and it was not locking up as severe. Now to the fun part. Clean the crank pins and the front lead rods until they have no lubricant on them and install. Rotate the engine in reverse and note the position of lock up on the crank pin with a marker on the rod. Do the same in forwards and also note the same. Now very lightly get a needle file and with gentle strokes remove just enough material from the conrod hole to get it to go over in that spot without binding. This really gets tedious as it is very much trial and error neccesitating removal and fitting of the lead rod.
Result
It runs just like the rear unit.
Clean everything and make sure there is no burring and then lightly oil the motion gear ( I use clock oil. Does not dry out and does not attract dust) and reinstall to the boiler.
Test in loco and make sure all the wiring is as it should be and have fun.
Grant |
Edited by - Grant Kerr on 02 Aug 2004 10:26:07 |
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adlereins
Foreman
1st Class Member
USA
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Posted - 02 Aug 2004 : 10:45:47
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Raymond,
Just so I'm clear on this, did you mean to say, "from 6 o'clock to 7 o'clock" instead of " 6 o'clock to 5 o'clock"? Seems to me 6 to 5 would be in reverse, looking at the loco from the firemans side. I'm inclined to agree with you that too much slop is the problem, especially in light of Grant's post about elongating the holes did not work. Thanks Grant!
I had hoped that just running it, breaking it in, would help in eliminating the problem, but from your observations, it might get worse. It "appears" that the drivers are a press fit onto the axles. Could it be that on some loco's, the left front driver should have been pressed on just slightly more in a counter-clockwise direction in relation to the opposite side driver? If so, MTH should send a correctly configured front set with pre-paid return for the bad set, for those of us with this problem. If I were MTH, I would be paying close attention to this thread. Just a thought.
Take Care,
Allen B. |
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