VERY VERY impressive, You are very skillled in drawing the engines, do you print them or have them printed by a printing company?

Dennis

 Mark's motto  .....

Current BL-2 progress

email not received... yet

I did not intend my last post to imply I have motor blocks for sale, I was merely mentioning that I anticipated the need.

Greg

Greg, email sent.

I bought a boat-load of their 2 and 3 axle blocks not too long before they went away. Figured I'd have a reason to use them some day. They are all fitted with the one-time only SS wheels too...

Greg

Thanks, I appreciate it.

If you pull the cover off the block, and some of the wheels, you can see the slot and the metal "fork" inside that has a thin slot that the motor brush "tab" engages.

That's where you reach in to heat the soldered joint.

I'll see what I can do about pictures this weekend.

Greg

I breathlessly wait. 

This particular SD45 also has other electrical issues, ie melted wiring because I tried running it in a consist, powered by a batterycar, without applying Marty's electrical runaround.  Sigh.

So far the technique described has worked on the blocks that "grind".

Almost impossible to get a good shot of the metal "forks" that the motor "tabs" engage, they are deep in the slots on each side of the motor block. In fact it's normal to melt a little plastic in that slot getting the soldering iron in there. I'll try to get some pictures added to my site, I just noticed I have no shots even showing where the "access slots" are to see these connections.

It's a funny situation, the original design allows the motor and drive train to flex, and pretty much auto-aligh, but has bad long term electrical issues. (rotation and movement of the motor affects electrical contact).

Soldering the motor contacts fixes the electrical issues, but normally the motor and drive get misaligned, since soldering fixes the motor in place.

You just can't win sometimes ha ha!

Greg

p.s. some of the original systems that had nylon hex drives will just fail, the nylon self destructs, but this is only in the very old units.

Thanks, Greg.  I think I understand what you are saying.  I'll have to go look.

Pics? 

Motor misalignment...

Second to last on the "Prime Mover" issues page

https://elmassian.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=215&Itemid=248

It is a long page... more than you ever wanted to know about the motor block.

Pretty easy to fix..

Greg

Paul Burch said:

Steve,

Both motor blocks?

I'm pretty sure that's the case.  It's pretty loud.

Steve,

Both motor blocks?

Thick gear grease.

I have a SD 45 that I purchased new in 2003.  It has had an in motion growl since day one.  I've been told that there is a fix for that, but for the life of me, I can't find anything on it.

Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks Kevin.  Try slipping a sheet of paper between the rail head and the blind driver. Mine look like they are touching, but the paper test proves they are not. I'm sure there are situations in vertical curves where they will contact the rail.

Theoretically, the tractive effort of the locomotive has nothing to do with the number of wheels in contact with the rails. The equation for steam locomotive tractive effort takes into consideration boiler pressure, cylinder diameter, stroke, and wheel diameter, but not the number of drivers. Likewise, the advantage of 3-axle diesel trucks isn't better traction, but spreading the weight of the locomotive out over more points, so it's easier on the track.

I can't speak to the drivers on others' C-19s, but I've not done any modification to mine. My middle drivers are quite firmly on the rails bearing their share of the weight of the locomotive. The spacers keep the drivers from dropping below the railhead, but do not suspend it above it, as is common on un-sprung chassis like the Bachmann 4-6-0 and my Roundhouse live steam 2-6-0. There's just a bit more springing on the front and rear axles such that they can rise up farther in the frame than the middle two drivers.

I've not had the opportunity to run my C-19 anywhere that has significant grades (>3%), so I can't make any claims to its pulling power as opposed to other locos in that environment. The drawbar pull of mine is pretty significant, though, so comparing it to other locos which I have run on steep grades, I'd not expect there to be any concerns.

Later,

K

Daktah John said:

 

 

Can we rebuild them? Have we the technology?

Maybe I just need to change the operation a bit - for trains over 4 cars a helper will be required.  If I run the Shay as a helper on the rear I can probably get 10 cars up the hill. The train would need to be split to run the wye as one tail is only accommodates 5 cars. On the plus side, that arrangement would allow working the industries at Indian Hill Junction without running around the wye first.

I just need to upgrade the RailBoss card in the Shay to a newer one so I can run two engines independently from the same radio.

EDIT to add:  I tested them double heading tonight. Nearly perfect speed and stick position match. With the board I currently have in the Shay I can't control the C-19 independently when the Shay is powered up, but I can put the C-19 processor off-line from the transmitter and control the Shay independently. The more I think about it, that situation might be more desirable than full independent control as when the Shay is powered up and the C-19 is on-line they both respond together to throttle and direction changes.