I've been working on the regearing / retro fitting of a Broadway Limited Paragon 2 Mikado, since October. it belongs to a small museum, which I have been volunteering for, so I don't know its history. Originally I thought it was the gears being old and just crumbling, which was partly true. once I got the new gears in it was still binding occasionally. Determined it was a main driving rod that was flipped and facing the wrong way. As a result I had to order a new set of rods, which aren't exactly the same a the originals but the lengths are the same and the engine rolls smoothly so Im confident it's not the rods or a quartering issse. I've spent the better part of today trying to get the engine to run smoothly and even went as far as replacing the replacement gears. The engine Ran well, once the gears were changed out for the first couple of minutes but after the third time going in reverse started to bind and stall yet again. Before I send it to Broadway I'm hoping someone here may have experience with this problem and be able to provide me with a quick fix.
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If one could roll back the hands of time... They would be waiting for the next train into the future. A. H. Francey 1921-2007
My only BLI engine is a Hudson. It seemed fine, but then I noticed it was slipping, first in reverse and then also in forward. It turned out the worm gear on the shaft off the motor was slipping. A drop of CA glue fixed it.
It sounds like a different problem than what you have, but loose gears on shafts can cause many problems, and it might be worth looking into.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Thank you
Got gears in and working... for about 1/2 an hour then they slowly started to skip and finallt the whole thing is doing nothing. Already spent a good 10-123 hours on this!
I'm affraid to count the hours (and calendar days) spent on fixing steam locos. The good news is that I'm getting better at it .
Simon
This sounds to me as if one, perhaps more of the driver pairs may be slipping quarter.
I'd start phase 2 of the troubleshooting by ensuring that all the drivers are firmly on their axles, and in precisely consistent quarter. As this is a toy train, it doesn't matter that the two sides have cranks exactly 90 degrees phased... but it does matter that all four sets are the same to well within the rod-eye clearances on the pins.
Check to see that the new gear teeth haven't become damaged or deformed in the test running so far, and that the pivots on which the gears turn have proper tight clearance and are properly lubricated.
Take the motor out, but leave all the rest of the gear drive intact, and take the rods off. Arrange another locomotive to push the chassis for a few sustained minutes (this should be just one driver pair 'backdriving' the geartrain at this point, if I understand how this locomotive is set up) and see if there is any binding isolated to the gears or the one set of axle bearings.
Now put one set of side rods on, so you have two axles driven, and repeat the test. Work up to the point you have all the side rods on but NOT the main rods or the valve-gear eccentric crank.
If all is still smooth, install the mains with appropriate thin spacers or washers to keep them on with the valve cranks still disconnected. Run to be sure the crossheads or piston rods aren't hanging up somehow, or there is still some resistance somewhere.
Now put the cranks back on and run one more time with the valve gear oscillating. Monitor the motor current to be sure there is no periodic or continuous binding in the valve gear.
At the conclusion of this testing, check that the quartering of all four pairs hasn't changed.