The rear tender wheel gears on my Bachmann 3-Truck Shay do not want to move. I was doing a test run this morning and they would run intermittently. Now it seems not at all. The engine is wired for RC/Battery and I’ve opened up the trucks and had a look at the motor and all the wiring seems to be in good shape. The one thing I’ve noticed is the horizontal bar spins but the wheels are not…so not sure if something has broken.
I appreciate any advice or direction to go…
Richard
Richard Mynderup said:
The rear tender wheel gears on my Bachmann 3-Truck Shay do not want to move. I was doing a test run this morning and they would run intermittently. Now it seems not at all. The engine is wired for RC/Battery and I’ve opened up the trucks and had a look at the motor and all the wiring seems to be in good shape. The one thing I’ve noticed is the horizontal bar spins but the wheels are not…so not sure if something has broken.
I appreciate any advice or direction to go…
Richard
I had something similar happen with my battery powered 2 Truck Shay awhile back. Turns out the trucks were basically gone. A call to Dave Goodson was in order and he solved it all for me. Now it runs great again!
Thanks Bruce…I’ve got into Dave and hopeful that he’ll return my call.
I recently had a brand new three truck Shay doing exactly the same thing.
The problem was the intermittent plunger contacts between the tender wiring and the truck itself. I didn’t fix it as the loco was under new warranty anyway.
The Australian dealer did the work, so I don’t know what he did. The only proper way to fix it would be to hard wire the trucks.
The horizontal drive shaft is driven by the front truck. It is not mechanically connected to the other trucks.
Hey Bruce…still haven’t heard back from Dave as of the writing of this post. Was Dave able to come up with a fix for the bad truck or did you end up replacing it?
Richard
Tony - I’m wondering if a shim under the pc board would create a better contact??
Richard
If it’s wired for battery R/C then the plungers for track power pickup shouldn’t be an issue !
I am working on another three truck Shay at the moment.
It too has a rear truck power problem.
Be advised that on all the examples I have seen the track pick wires and the motor wires have been mixed up in the cabling.
Note Bachmann have not made life easy as on the rear truck connections above, the Orange and Grey wires are actually track pickups.
The Red and Black are actually the M & M+ wires.
They get corrected in the cabling at the plug so that inside the tender it is the Orange and Grey that do go to the motor.
Check that there are no wires broken at the plug. That is what I have just found.
Richard Mynderup said:
Hey Bruce…still haven’t heard back from Dave as of the writing of this post. Was Dave able to come up with a fix for the bad truck or did you end up replacing it?
Richard
Richard,
They were in pretty bad shape.
Fortunately, Dave had some parts and was able to replace them, although they are still plastic - but now MUCH better shape.
I had thought about getting the metal replacement trucks, but I think they were out of stock at the time (this was a few years ago)
Bruce Chandler said:
Richard Mynderup said:
Hey Bruce…still haven’t heard back from Dave as of the writing of this post. Was Dave able to come up with a fix for the bad truck or did you end up replacing it?
Richard
Richard,
They were in pretty bad shape.
Fortunately, Dave had some parts and was able to replace them, although they are still plastic - but now MUCH better shape.
I had thought about getting the metal replacement trucks, but I think they were out of stock at the time (this was a few years ago)
Bruce
Yep the original 2 truck shays with plastic trucks had a lot of failures.
The trucks on the 3 truck shay (and the newer 2 truck shays) have metal trucks.
Stan
Richard Mynderup said:
The rear tender wheel gears on my Bachmann 3-Truck Shay do not want to move. I was doing a test run this morning and they would run intermittently. Now it seems not at all. The engine is wired for RC/Battery and I’ve opened up the trucks and had a look at the motor and all the wiring seems to be in good shape. The one thing I’ve noticed is the horizontal bar spins but the wheels are not…so not sure if something has broken.
I appreciate any advice or direction to go…
Richard
Richard
Two possible problems.
To check this out remove the truck and connect power to the motor plungers. If the truck moves the problem is electrical.
I had a trace fry on the main board in the locomotive on one of my 3 truck shays. If it is an electrical problem I found it easiest to remove one of the front trucks as well as the 3rd truck and then use an ohm meter to figure out where the problem was.
Hope that helps
Stan