My 2-6-2 is doing something kind of weird lately. After going through a curve, when it hits a straight section of track it slows down, jerks, or stalls. Any suggestions?
My first thought was that the push rods and/or connecting rods might be binding, but that doesn’t appear to be the case, as far as I can tell.
Ray Dunakin said:
My 2-6-2 is doing something kind of weird lately. After going through a curve, when it hits a straight section of track it slows down, jerks, or stalls. Any suggestions?My first thought was that the push rods and/or connecting rods might be binding, but that doesn’t appear to be the case, as far as I can tell.
It’s a Buddy L 2-6-2.
Does this engine have spring loaded electrical pickup brushes that rub against the inside of the wheels? If so check for a stuck or worn out brush. loosing electrical contact will cause that problem.
Dennis Cherry said:Near as I can tell, the power pickup is through the axles on both the drive wheels and the pilot/trailing wheels.
Does this engine have spring loaded electrical pickup brushes that rub against the inside of the wheels? If so check for a stuck or worn out brush. loosing electrical contact will cause that problem.
Ray,
the Buddy L loco, while it has the brass pickup strips for power collection from the driver axles bushes, only picks up power on the leading and trailing truck wheelsets. The Buddy L has plastic drive wheel bushes, unlike its cousin the Heritage Express which uses brass bushes for current collection on the driving wheels.
Due the geometry of the leading and trailing trucks (very short connecting arm) and the usually undergauge wheelsets the trucks tend to slew sideways when the loco is travelling on a straight section of track. This does impact on current collection, remembering that it is only these four small wheels collecting power. To overcome this add tender wheel power pickups and a quick disconnect cable to link to the loco from the tender. This will ensure constant power pickup. I do this mod to all my Buddy Ells. I also gently separate the pilot and pony wheel axles (very gently as they are quite fragile) and insert thin brass rings (cut from brass tubing) over each axle adjacentr to the wheel half to keep the wheelsets in gauge.
As an afterthought, as the loco exits a curved rail section and stops operating, jiggle the leading or trailing truck wheelsets to establish power continuity. If loco operates then problem as stated above.Tim Brien said:Maybe mine's a different model, because there's definitely power flowing through the drive wheels -- when running after dark, sparks can sometimes be seen under the drive wheels as well as the lead/trailing trucks.
the Buddy L loco, while it has the brass pickup strips for power collection from the driver axles bushes, only picks up power on the leading and trailing truck wheelsets. The Buddy L has plastic drive wheel bushes, unlike its cousin the Heritage Express which uses brass bushes for current collection on the driving wheels.
Except for the blind center driver, which is useless. It just hangs there, 1/16" above the rail!
Once I get the rest of the track laid, I’d like to get a better loco such as the Bachmann Annie.
Ray,
I have yet to see a Buddy L which has brass driver wheel bushes. They do have the longitudinal brass strips as on the Heritage Express, but this is only to act as a buss bar to connect the leading and trailing truck wheel pickups to direct the power via the umbilical chord to the sound card in the tender and then back to the motor terminals. All my Buddy L have plastic drive wheel bushes and only pick up power on the pilot and pony wheels. An owner of a Buddy L, on another forum, assured me that his Buddy L picked up power on the drive wheel sets, so there may be differences in the production run, possibly at the time of changeover from Heritage Express to Buddy L. There may have been a surplus of brass bushes left over from the Heritage production run.
The addition of tender wheel pickups will see a vast improvement in power pickup reliability. However, with this reliability comes the inevitable other failures that this loco suffers from. I carry out numerous mods to my Bloody Ells and now have many hours reliable running time on them. They are now as reliable as the Annie. A useful mod is to remove the umbilical chord. This will disable the sound system, but will give better running reliability. The wheel pickup longitudinal brass buss bars in the loco chassis, will need to be wired to the motor terminals, if the umbilical chord is removed.
On my last Buddy L conversion, I discarded the original body and used a Bachmann Annie body (takes around ten minutes to modify to fit). At the time, I shortened the Buddy L chassis and the Bachmann body around 0.75" as I preferred the shorter look to the chassis. The shortening process is not required but was my preferred method as the Buddy L chassis appears to long aft of the trailing drivewheel set. I also used an Annie steamchest and steam cylinders with an Annie driverod connecting to the stock siderods. I also bonded a thin brass strip to the wheel tread on the centre driving wheelset. This brought the centre wheel diameter to within a few thousandths of an inch of the flanged wheelsets, improving the overall look. The end result was quite pleasing and suprisingly was very much like a standard gauge prairrie loco in Streamtown Museum.I’ll confirm that my Buddy L also had power pick up from 2 of the driver wheels in addition to the lead and trailing wheels, so it had 8 point pick up. I sold mine as it was too weak for my planned layout.
I agree with Tim that either adding pick ups or switching out the trucks to AC or HLWs that have the pick ups installed would help alot, mine stalled on anything other than perfect track.