My Accucraft K-36 has years of operation on it and the siderods are starting to show a lot of slop and extra travel. My thought was to make a brass bushing, slip it on the driver them drill out the side rod to the outside diameter of the bushing and simply reinstall the rod. Will this work? what have you guys done with a similar problem?
The locomotive is still operating perfect but I don’t want to let this get to far out of hand, accucraft no longer sells parts for this model.
I’ve heard of this fix a number of times, makes sense to me. Brass also makes sense, so it wears first. Can you find any standard tubing that will work, or are the holes pretty egg-shaped already?
Greg
They are a little egged shaped but not bad which is why I want to deal with this now before they are bad and harder to correct. I’m sure I can find brass tubing that will work, I just want to make sure my idea is solid before jumping in.
Hey Bob,
Friction bearings work great. Just keep em lubricated on a normal basis and you’ll be in business.
And as a matter of fact, two of my Accucraft steamers already have the brass frictions bearings in place from the factory.
Hope you’re able to post pictures of your endeavor!
Matt
Brass tubing should work however you would have a more durable fix if you use bronze or oil-lite bearings.
Also check the pins and shafts. I found those wear quite a bit…often more than the bearing itself is. This is much harder to fix properly and would require machinist skills.
Ok, this is what I’m trying first. Brass tubing will work but its a little thick so I found an old antenna from a RC plane transmitter and the center section of the antenna rod fits perfect. Its chrome plated brass and fills the gap without drilling the side rods out. It fits snug on the post and when the rods is put back it has a hair of play similar to the way it came new. The tube is very thin so I have no idea how well it will hold up but the chrome plating should help. Either this is going to work or fail fast, I will be watching it closely. The left side rear driver post is the only one I have found to be egg shaped. The locomotive makes far more right turns then left and this may be playing a part in why only this post is out of round.
Bob, My dad was a clock repair man. They use a lot of brass/bronze insert bearings, that come in agazillion sizes of ID and OD and thicknesses and they have the correct reamers for a perfect fit ID and OD. I know in SoCal, there has to be several that would be up to the challenge. I think that the antenna won’t hurt anything but I would question it’s longevity.
Well like I said, this is the first try without doing any drilling or reaming. The quality of the tube I used is better than you may think but its very thin and if its going to fail it will be on the driver with the egg shaped post first though it did fit snug on the post. Gave each new bushing a drop of oil and I will test this later today though I’m sure it would take weeks of operation before anything bad turns up
I think it will work very well for a long time.
Gave her a test this morning before the temps hit 100 again. Anyway, the side rods seemed very smooth without the slop I would see at startup. I only took it around the railroad twice and one thing I was listening for is when the locomotive started down grade I could hear the chuff speed up for a second or two while it free rolled some till the rods and gears grabbed again, It did not do it this time so I’m very happy so far. I still don’t completely trust it and as time goes on I will still be watching closely. One thing is for sure, its days of operating at a friends house pulling 30 car trains are over. Its staying on home rails pulling my typical 6 to 7 car trains and believe me, this beast doesn’t know its pulling anything when load gets that small. The Video is at my friends house
https://www.facebook.com/bob.russell.758/videos/794213900653453/?l=6371081821697131689
Good video Bob. (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)
Thanks Joe. It was pulling about 20 cars more but I thought it would be best to cut those off. Like I said, those days are over and I need to start thinking about keeping this locomotive operating for years to come and not put load on it just because it can pull it.
