I must not be living right. I was working on the boiler on my new Roundhouse 4-4-0. I used my Dremel to grind off the old dome locations and didn't cover the motor well enough. I had the frame and motor wrapped in plastic but metal shavings and dust must have somehow found their way to it now it runs very sporadic and shorts out on curves! Argh! I will disassemble it again and give it a good cleaning and use canned air to blow it out real good. I hope that fixes it. Any other suggestions?
Jim, You will need to disassemble the motor to get the shavings out. The magnet will prevent proper cleaning.
Remember in Science class when the teacher would put metal shavings on a piece of paper and place a magnet under it to make the little pieces of metal dance around? That is what happened when you used the Dremel tool without removing the motor. Now the motor is clogged up with metal shavings. A complete disassemble and through cleaning will be needed to restore the locomotive. Just remember Dremel tools, metal shavings, and magnets don't mix.
Lucky me, I dodged the bullet. I found no metal dust in the motor however the wiring that goes between the tender and locomotive seemed to be easily pinched and crowded so when I reassembled everything I gave the wires plenty of room and suddenly it runs as good as new. Go figure! Good advice on magnets and metal dust not mixing well. I thought I had the motor wrapped well but on future projects I will remove the motor and put it away from the grinding zone. Far away. Thanks for the replies gentleman.
Jim, I'm confused as to why you didn't take the boiler completely off the frame to work on it? That seems totally unlike you? Why were we trying to take the boiler off? I wish I had known you were going to do that. I have plenty of spare boilers that I could have sent you to work on. If you need something, let me know. I have tons of parts, including tender shells.
I was trying to keep from disassembling as much as possible. My bad. The wire routing and disassembly procedure is not enjoyable. I'm back on track now.
Has Roundhouse changed the procedure? Should be one screw, through the steam chest, and then lift back and the rear tab on the cab comes off the frame. Then you can unscrew the cab from the boiler and there you go. Of course the headlight wire might be an issue. So I take it that the RH 4-4-0 is becoming 151?
It's looking that way. I love the running characteristics and onboard sound on my new Roundhouse. The inital IHC oldtimer project is on the back burner for now. It's a developing situation. Anyways, the wiring on the Roundhouse goes through a slot in the cab and must be disconnected in order to separate everything. That requires taking the tender apart and cutting the ears off the plug. I just didn't want to fool with it. It's not that I don't know how, I just don't always do it.
Oh, I wasn't implying you didn't know how. I was just curious because I take them apart all the time. I wasn't sure if RH changed it with the addition of the new motor w/flywheel, headlight, DCC, and sound. Good info!
