mantua 0-4-0 help

Phillip,

This may be too late to be of any help, but thought I'd throw it out there.....

By accident, while looking for old articles on turnout construction, I ran across this.....

November, 1955, Model Railroader, page 32: "Repairing Shorted Drivers," by John Page, with the subtitle, "That common engine demon, the shorted driver, is a cinch to fix if you use the technique shown here. In one hour you'll have your engine back in service."

In a nutshell, Page explains a method of finding the exact location of the short (using your power supply!!!) and then suggests drilling out the insulation, cleaning it up with a jeweler's saw blade, and then filling the space with thick shellac or model cement. It sounds too easy to be effective, but Page says he once removed fully a sixth of the insulation on one driver (before finally eliminating the short) patched it with the shellac, and had been running the locomotive for years since without problems.

If you (and/or others) haven't access to the Nov '55 MRR, and want to see the article, I'll be happy to snailmail you a photocopy. Send me your mailing address in a message or via email.

BillS
 

Russ Bellinis

Active Member
I wonder if some five minute epoxy would work even better? I suspect it wasn't mentioned in Johns article because epoxy wasn't invented until the 60's I think.
 

Ray Marinaccio

Active Member
Russ, I think epoxy would work. be sure that it doesn't contain metal fillers. I found out the hard way that JB weld will conduct a small amount of Current when I tried to repair a solenoid on my Chevy.
This thread inspired me to try repairing an old driver set. sort of a variation of Vic's suggestion.
I measured the OD if the driver center and the ID of the rim, A .020" difference.
I cut a 1/4" strip of .010" cardstock, formed it around the driver center and cut it to size.
I then fit the strip into the rim and pressed the center in place. After making sure the rim was true I trimmed the excess cardstock with a razor knife and saturated it with super glue.
 

Ray Marinaccio

Active Member
Phillip,
I Doen't have the loco running yet but I think it is safe to say it was a success. I checked them out with an ohm meter and cut the flange off of one in the lathe to make the blind driver set for the 0-6-0 without spinning the rim off the center.
I think this could be done without taking the wheel off the axle so the drivers wouldn't need requartering.

BTW, Thanks for posting this thread cause now I'm one step closer to finishing this loco. All I need now are about a half a dozen more parts.
 
P

philip

3 axel truck

Two questions,
If you cut the wheel flange off the center axel on a 3 axel truck will that flangeless wheelset help prevent derails? Some of the new steam locos are coming out flangeless.

What is requartering?

I think maybe Bill's article might be the answer for me. I'm assuming requartering is for trueing the rims ? I hate to knock the rim off. You ever see how they set the rim (prototype) on fire in the old days and then beat that huge rim back on?
 

60103

Pooh Bah
Philip:
Quartering has to do with getting the pins that the side rods ride on at 90 degrees from the pins on the other side. You have to put the wheels back on the axles exactly the way they came off or your side rods will bind as the wheel turns. If you don't take the wheels off the axle, you won't have a problem. (at least, no more problem than you started with.)
Nitpicker's note: exactly 90 degrees isn't required unless you operate with live steam as you can't see both sides at once, but if you put the first axle together at 87.4 degrees, you better put the rest of them on the same way.
 

Ray Marinaccio

Active Member
Phillip,
The blind drivers will help locomotives with longer wheelbases negotiate sharper radius curves.
I have seen them cause derailments also if the flangeless wheel slides off the rail.
The 0-6-0 I'm putting together is having this problem. I think it's due to excessive sideplay of the driver sets on the frame. I'm going to install spacers on the axles, hopefully that will eliminate the problem.

This scrathbuilt 2-8-2 will run on O gauge track, but doesn't like O 27 to well.
 

Attachments

  • 027l1.jpg
    027l1.jpg
    46.5 KB · Views: 59

60103

Pooh Bah
Ray:
I think that prototype blind drivers were made a bit wider than the flanged ones, just to alleviate this problem. I don't think they were always successful.
On a model, you might consider shimming the blind drivers up so they don't rest on the rail. I know some of the toy manufacturers used smaller drivers in the centre.
 
P

philip

3 axel not track-n to good

I have this old athearn PA-1 with the 3 axe config and the thing won't stay on the rails worth anything. I used the NRMA gauge and still no luck. The truck seems to pop a wheelie then jumps the track. Seems the truck rocks to much on the king pin or whatever that mount is called.

I also received a parts manual from mantua/model power and the wheel set for both axel gear and bearing is about 20 bucks after the shipping and handling. Thats for the 0-4-0. the gear is already on the axel. the only thing is removing the gear on the motor shaft. Will order two of those just in case you no what happens.

philip
 
Blind drivers are common, particularly on locos with long driver wheelbases..... on model AND prototype locomotives. The more so on lines with sharp curves.

I've always considered side play a problem, and like to put brass shims (to act as thrust bearings) between the inner hub of each wheel (at least on the driven axle) and the frame. The worm drives that most of our locos use compounds the problem. In forward it forces the driven axle to one side, and in reverse to the other.

And Philip --- the age-old advice in model railroading is to never push a driver off an axle if you haven't a quartering jig to get it back on correctly. North West Short Line sells them. Perhaps others too. The short repair method in the article I mentioned (on it's way) does not require removing the driver from the axle or (surprisingly) even the driver set from the locomotive.....

BillS
 

Ray Marinaccio

Active Member
Phillip,
I'm not sure what to say about the PA-1. I'm assuming when you say it's old that it has the metal sideframes with the axle bearings in them. I find the one I have is sensitive to uneven track due to the long wheelbase of it's rigid 3 axle trucks. What your describing sound like it's more than that.
You could disassemble the trucks and remove the center axle sets, reassemble them and test run it to see if that eliminates the problem before removing the flanges from the wheels. If that solves the problem I would remove the flanges and cut the wheels for the center axles to a slightly smaller diameter like David mentioned.
For not knowing what to say I guess I went on a bit.

The price for those Mantua parts doesn't sound bad.

I shimmed the drivers on this 0-6-0 and that seams to have done the trick. I don't understand why there was so much sideplay, .050". You can see one of the black shims on the bottom rear driver.
You can also see in this photo the section added to the frame. It was cut in 3 pieces when I found it.:confused:
 

Attachments

  • feb29005.jpg
    feb29005.jpg
    41.8 KB · Views: 54
P

philip

shorting driver fix

Bill, The package arrived friday. Thank You!

philip
 

jon-monon

Active Member
Bill, I received the instructions you sent a couple of weeks ago, but my PC with the scanner was sick, so I promptly shoved them in my NGSL to take to work and scan, tehn equally as promptly, forgot all about it. Well, I opened my NGSL today to read it and guess what I found? :D :D :D Sorry for the delay, but htey are posted in the-gauge yahoo group:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/The-gauge/files/MiscData/

Trying pdf's this time. I hope that works well for everyone, if not, I'll be glad to post as large jpg's.

I like your letterhead Bill! TY...
 
Top