5 days ago
Sunday, January 19, 2020
New 44 Class Gears
Well I decided to try and replace the gears in two of my clicketty clacketty 44 Class locos on Saturday. I had to re-acquaint myself with the process of removing the bottom of the bogie, but that took about 3 minutes to check out Darren Lee’s post on a facebook group and all was good. Screwdriver, plyers and voila. Off they come. I purchased 48 gears and they arrived on Tuesday this week along with my AMRM. The new gears are certainly larger than the ones I am replacing. I replaced the gears in the first loco, put it on the track and it ran awfully. The loco now binds. There are some quite large jumps as certain wheels go round. It is an absolute disaster.
I did the change to the second loco and I get the same results. I replaced the gears with the original ones and it now hops all around the layout.
I spend half a day doing this, testing it and I’m quite upset with the results. My mate PK replaced the gears on his 47 Class during the week and he reports that the loco is running well. The last time I replace the gears, the results were very good. I can’t believe that the gears are the wrong ones, too large or have their own issues already.
Following further work today on the first loco, it seems that years of thumping down the track has damaged other gears in the loco. Oh Well, it looks like two of my 44 class locos are now to be consigned to rotten row.
Also today I thought about picking up some styrene from my local hobby shop - Simon Says and trying to create my own rail for the AKFX/Y wagons that I built the other weekend. I picked up three packets of 0.030" x 0.060" which I will use next weekend for building the rail load.
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Shame about the gear replacement issues Craig. It's a well-known fact that a certain brand 44 class has had long running issues with cracked gears. I always hate having to perform surgery on a model locomotive. Even if I've had luck getting them to run properly once more, they always seem to take on a different feel through the throttle. If a new mechanism is going to prove just as expensive as replacing the 44's with a different brand model, perhaps stripping the gears and motor out and reverting them to lighted dummy units may be an option before consigning them to rotten row? Otherwise, shipping them off to someone to fix like Paul The Trainman at Toormina might be a good last resort. https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Local-Business/The-Trainman-Shop-629917320538980/ I've had him repair one of my locomotives before when it was beyond me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments Phil. I guess I just ran them too long in their hoppy state and caused other internal issues.
ReplyDeleteNo worries Craig. I'm holding out to add the other brand's model 44 class to my 90's roster. Don't want to name brands in case I offend anyone, but I've heard enough stories such as yours to steer clear of trouble.
DeleteCraig,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the post. It is most timely. I had recently purchased a pack of these gears with the intention of replacing the existing ones in my 44 class. After your experience, I'll let sleeping dogs lie and accept the clicking.
cheers Phil
Phil,
ReplyDeleteI think my issue is that I waited too long before I replaced mine. Replace early is the key.
Craig
Craig, I tried to do a replacement on same manufacturer, different model class, and found the new gears had an extra tooth added. Worth a check. May be there for a spare, I don't know !!
ReplyDeleteGents, I used the SDS NR class replacement gears on my 930s - they now run ever so sweetly, and the replacements were cheap. Now if only SDS would do replacements for the Austrains X class, I could get the rest of my fleet back up and running!
ReplyDelete