In another thread Ken W. mentioned "tuning" a model locomotive. Would anyone like to share their tips/tricks for tuning a model locomotive? Thanks, Craig
Basically, I just take the drive train apart, clean it, and re-lube it. I also look at the electrical conections to see if they need to be made better - like Athearn units often need. I also polish the truck wheels using a soft brush wheel in a Dremel. Turn the chassis over, hook it up to power with alligator clips, and polish the wheels with the Dremel while the unit runs. I wear a glove so I don't polish a finger in the process - skin does not hold up well to a Dremel brush! It's really a case-by-case thing - run the drive with the body shell off and see what you think ought to be better. Ken
A follow-up to my earlier posting on "tuning". Two recent examples: 1) I had a Lifelike Proto 2000 (pre-Walthers) PRR GP9 sitting here for several years. It never ran well, and I did not tune it when I first took it out of the box. It was very sluggish. When I finally opened it up, the gear train on each truck was full of that "peanut butter" type lube Lifelike's Chinese contractor used to use. Bad stuff (sorry Rick!). I cleaned it all off and re-lubed the gear trains and bearings with light LaBelle oil plus a little LaBelle teflon on the gears and the thing ran much better. Now, however, I have another problem with it - a cracked axle gear, another chronic P2K pre-Walthers problem, but that's another issue. Walthers sent me some new geared wheelsets, but I have not put them in yet. The PRR GP9 still goes "ca-thunk ca-thunk ca-thunk" when it runs! 2) I bought one of the recent Frisco b/y Walthers FM H10-44 switchers. Super model! But, it made a grinding noise when it ran, more so going forward than in reverse. After crabbing about it with my guy at Walthers (who wanted me to send it back), I decided to try to see what was going on armed with some suggestions he gave me. What I found was that the forward truck gear train had NO lube on it at all, while the back one did. A bit of LaBelle oil on the front, and we are good as could be now. Every case is different, but even the ones that run well out of the box will benefit from a little TLC. Ken
On steamers be sure your siderods aren't binding and make sure to check that your wheels are 4' 81/2" apart. Clean all cat hair out of moving parts as well.
A couple of things I have done over the years to tune a locomotive that haven't been mention here are. 1. I have put extra Thrush washers on the motor so that when it reverses direction the armature stays centered in the magnet. This was on a really old Athearn BB motor. It helped the motor to run a little smoother and to not be so jerky. 2. I took the trucks apart and cleaned all the lubricant out and then put a very abrasive tooth paste in the trucks and ran it for about 10 minutes in each direction. I read an article somewhere so I thought I would give it a try. NEVER AGAIN! I can't say if it helped at all but what a mess I made. The wife thought I was crazy when she caught me with the tooth paste. 3. I have taken the trucks apart and used an Xacto knife to get flash out of the gears. 4. I lube the motor bearings and the axle bearings. 5. On the older Athearn loco's I replaced the axles about every 3 or 4 years. I also replace the Athearn wheels with NWSL wheels. I always make sure the wheels are in guage with an NMRA gauge. Bob Wintle PS: Leave the tooth paste in the Bathroom!
On steam engines, aside from gear drive mechanisms, there are several considerations: 1) as Jim James mentioned make certain the siderods and linkages aren't binding. 2) make certain that all of the driver sets are properly quartered. This means that from one side to the other the drive rods on the wheels of an axle must be 90/270 degrees apart, exactly. This must be the case for all axles interconnected by siderods. (Image below) 3) if the connection from the motor to the gearbox is a piece of flexible tubing, it should be as straight as possible, and it needs to be a very flexible material (silicone rubber) 4) it may be possible to substitute a different drive motor (especially some of the newer smoother running designs) to improve performance at lower speeds.
For Athearn, PRE-hex, type drives: A few things I like to do is use "flag connectors" available at most Radio Shacks, as press-on clips that hold a motor clip wire, to the trucks instead of soldering, so you can take the trucks off without un-soldering. Also you can cut the motor clip, just past the flywheels and soldier the wire from that flag connector to the shortened motor clip. Allowing the motor to be removed as well without un-soldering. I won't go into the truck gears as that been covered as good as can be, by my esteemed colleagues For my application, most of the noise that comes out of Athearn locos, comes from the motor and drivelines. You can see in the picture how the motor can be turned with the flywheels attached, using the lathe to turn the motor you can cut the flywheels to run true, and balanced, no matter how bent the motor shaft is. I call this dynamically balancing the motor. Why? Cause I'm nuts This step is mandatory if you run Ernst gears like I do. Otherwise you need hearing protection during op sessions, this alone is the greatest source of noise and harmonic vibration. But the whole Ernst thing is a tuning ordeal in itself. Another easy way to help quiet an Athearn type mechanism, is as simple as cutting a 1/2" piece of teflon tape wrap it carefully around the male end of the Athearn type driveline, making sure you use some thick, sticky oil like Labelle # 102, being very careful while slipping on the other driveline piece, and you will be surprised at how much quieter your Athearn, Proto or A-Line type drives run after you do this, and it does not make the drive line rigid either, just "tightens" it up a little, just make sure to. You will need to use some type of strait edge and get the frame as close to strait as you can, this also helps tune the loco too. trim any tape hanging out with a sharp knife, so it doesn't sling around and make another mess. This is another good thread, I learn something every time I log on to this site. Tom 3 times out in GJ|-|
Bob_Wintle detailed his story of toothpaste. It brings to mind a discussion on Model Railroader (?) many years ago of using lapping compound which is very fine abrasive in an oil or grease base. The procedure was to use it on tight moving parts, run them briefly and CLEAN IT ALL OFF THOROUGHLY. The finish step was replace all lubricant. This would speed up the natural wear process to open overly tight tolerances to give freer motion. The tone of the recommendation was that this was to be done very carefully and only as a last resort. Previous recommendations in this thread should work out better in the long run, especially the ones suggesting disassembling and carefully removing flashing. Another recommendation for steam models was to lubricate properly and then run inverted at high rpm in both directions for a couple minutes. This would give a slightly different wear pattern from right-side-up and help remove interfering material to give a freer motion.
I sure wish I had a lathe. I've got a few OLD Athearn loco's I would love to revive. I am going to try the Teflon tape a try. I have some Plumbers tape, isn't that what it is? Thanks for the tips. I too like this thread. El Bob Oh Toothpaste Boy!
Yea Bob, That plumbers tape is what I am referring to. You can get it in the plumbing Dept of almost any hardware store. Tom|-|
The reference to the lathe reminded me of another trick. On an old vibrating Athearn chassis, I used to remove the trucks and remove the drive linkages from the motors, leaving just the motor and flywheels in the frame. I would then use jumper wires to the motor and frame to power up the motor from a transformer. Once spinning at a medium speed, I would lay a fine file against the frame to stabilize it and let the file very lightly come into contact with one of the flywheels as the flywheel would move in relation to the frame. As GJ was describing, this is the poor boy's way of dynamically balancing the motor/flywheel assembly. This process would take some time, patience and a steady hand but has proven to be successful on a number of occasions. I have an old Athearn EMD NW2 switcher that was a real vibrator, especially with the Ernst speed/gear reduction set installed. After spending about an hour with her, the old girl became a really smooth running switcher.
Yes Sir Keith, The file will work too, you just can't get greedy, take your time find a place to rest the file, and try to hold file rock steady, a new sharp mill file works best I think. The flywheel brass is not hard at all and the more accurate you make the cut, the better. Before I turn one in the lathe I glue the flywheels with thin ACC nothing worse than cutting the flywheel close and having it rotate on the bent shaft
This thread sparked my interest in getting my Frisco GP 35 running better. I have spent alot of time today working on the unit. I found problems in the gearing on the front truck. I shimmed the gears and helped it. What I found next and I think is the source of most of the noise, is that the magnets in the motor are completely loose. I may be wrong but didn't they used to epoxed or glued to the frame of the older motors. I also mued this loco to another with a new Tsunami decoder and the Tsunami does not drown out the noise. Very disappointing. I think my GP 35 is going to get a new can motor. Bob
Hi Bob Send that chassis to me if you want, I'll give it a go. If the motor has run long enough out of whack, then the bearings could be beat out of it too, and nothing can bring it back, I would like to try and help it if I can. Tom
I have sent back to Athearn 12-15 motors so far from their kits that were released in the RTR stuff that came out 2-4 years ago. I don't know if the bearing materials or motors shafts are bad, but boy some of them are sure junk. I could not bring them back no matter what I did, but Athearn replaced the motors no problem so they know there is/was a problem Tom
Bob is correct about the toothpaste made by today's standards and probably by any standards for that matter. I used to work for Procter & Gamble and actually sold Crest toothpaste among other things. Back then, there were two flavors, regular and mint, and both were in paste form. Then along came blue gel so there were three. Today there are so many choices it makes one's head spin. Of those originals, I believe only the regular red label paste is still made. Toothpaste back then and still is today a mild abrasive. The problem is all of the additives that are now added that are chemicals for whitening, breath protection, and gum disease. I just finished making a post on another loop about not using Dawn dishwashing detergent for making wet water for scenery purposes because someone complained it was making the scenery gunky. Dawn has so many additives including Olay body lotion that it is worthless for our purposes. As I said on the other loop, the only dish detergent still on the market that will work for wet water is Ivory as it is pure. That is why mothers with allergic babies that still use cloth diapers use Ivory Snow.
I am hoping to find the same motor that is in the SW1500 that I just purchased. It is an Athearn Genesis motor. Athearn part # G62017.1. Thier website does not show it as available and niether does horizons. Another good choice would be a Helix humper # 132 (without flywheels) or the 142 that is complete with flywheels. They can be found at http://www.alliancelink.com/alp/ Bob Wintle
Bob is correct - Most of today's toothpastes are not good for anything except brushing your teeth, but they are very good at that. Like Bob - I also have a P&G background. They were our largest customer and I was our P&G account manager in Cincinnati in the 1970's. While in college, I co-op'ed with Lever Brothers during summers, so I have a lot of soap suds in me! I think one toothpaste still useful as a gentile abrasive for other than dental use is Colgate "Great Regular Flavor" paste (not the gel!). It still uses a gentle dicalcium phosphate abrasive (we were one of their DCP suppliers), and is not full of a bunch of other go-go additives like many of the newer pastes and gels are. I've never used Colgate "GRF" paste for model railroad use, but it's great at rubbing out small knicks and marks from your car finish. Ken
