Good for you, Mike! I wen from American Flyer S gauge to HO, took a flyer in O in the mid-'60s, back into HO until the '90s, when I became an apartment-dweller with not-so-good eyesight. Changed back to O and am enjoying working on things I can SEE. There is an amazing amount of materials, kits, parts, etc. available in this day and age, and I've squirreled away enough "stuff" to keep me busy for the next ____? (I'll be 80 in March, so let's not dwell on that.) Have FUN!
Deano
Loco fixed. I added shims, plastic on the base, and stainless steel on the frame, and have the center axle riding perfectly on the rails with the other 2.
No pictures, because as of yet, no Photobucket.
I switched my main line to DC and ran around, forward, reverse, turned the loco around and did it all again, for about an hour last night.
It runs great!
I'm getting excited about building a simple layout for this train, no switching or complicated moves, just continuous running, and watching. That doesn't bore me at all. I do it with my main HO layout, just run trains, and watch, never get tired of it.
Happy New Year!
Mike.
My You Tube
I put the loco back on the test track this morning. The center axle actually wobbles back and forth, from the engineers side to the firemans side, as the rods connect at a different spot on the wheel, on each side.
It moves up and down .025" This seems to cause a slight hesitation as the loco tries to move, and just looks bad with the wheels going up and down.
I'm going to try and shim the axle race and see if I can get it to stay on the rails, and make for a smoother movement.
I've become fascinated with this loco, as if I don't have enough projects going on with my HO layout.
Mike, If I saw something like that down here, I would buy it too.
.
On30 has appeal, and so far I have resisted.
But... I am tempted.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I've had this for a few years, bought it off Craigs list from a mom, with a special needs son, and she didn't understand just what she had.
Long story short, she advertised it as HO because she bought HO track to run it on.
Her son had it running around his bedroom, just about desk level, any time he was in the room, the train was running.
We met at a Burger King parking lot, she brought out the box, and I immediately seen what is was. On30. I bought it anyway. I could go for for a change.
Got it out of the box today, to see how it runs. My plans are a new Christmas/holiday train.
It was full of lint, but after cleaning, it runs fine. Just one problem. The only axle that drives is the rear one, although all wheels have wipers for electrical contact.
There is a very noticable "slop" in the center axle, on the engineers side, that seems to give the loco some split second hesitation, as it tries to move the middle and front axle with the rods. The center wheel comes off the rails at a certain point, on the engineers side, as the loco tries to run.
I'm going to try and shim the center axle, to get it to run smoothly, and stop the wheel slop.
As soon as Photobucket gets back together, I'll post pictures.
The axle rides on the metal frame/weight on the top side, and plastic on the bottom.
I haven't measured yet, to see if I need to shim the top, or the bottom, I'm guessing it's the bottom axle race, as it's plastic.
It makes me think that this loco ran in one direction for all of it's previous life.
Not really any questions, just thought I'd talk about it, and see if anyone has experience with something like this.
My LHS has Micro Engineering On30 track.