Won this in an auction a few months ago, felt it was time to open for servcing, though it appeared lightly used from the sparkling clean wheels. After dealing with every wire involved in power breaking its solder joint, I started to pull apart bottom plate covering the drivers and gearing. In moving the chassis, something fell out - small, didn't see what it was. Later, while trying to get the gear box tightened down, found a small spring. Suspected (and then found on the floor - luck me) the other spring. Now the question - where the heck are these supposed to go? The Loco does run without these. But w/o any documentation I'm at a loss. Anyone have a clue?
Maybe contact Brass Trains, see if they can help.
https://www.brasstrains.com/
Mike.
My You Tube
I have maybe two-dozen brass locomotives from both top-shelf importers and also some of the economy variety. As far as documentation goes, sometimes there's a photocopy sheet with a little history and background of the engine. More common — nothing.
Tiny spring? If it is really small it may have dropped out of one of the driving boxes (axle bearing). Not all engines have sprung drivers but some do.
I don't have a good photo of a driver removed but the springs would be located between the axle and frame where the green arrow points:
2-8-2_driving-box by Edmund, on Flickr
Lay the beast on its back and lightly press down on each driver. If one doesn't spring back toward you, that might be the missing spring location.
There's sometimes larger springs on the pilot or trailing trucks or where the tender drawbar screws to the frame under the cab.
Good Luck, Ed
I have one of those, and I don't have an exploded view of it, but I do know that it's pretty much built like most other brass engines. I should check on mine, but it sounds like a spring that goes under a driver bearing. So if you remove the cover plate and carefully lift a driver axle, you should see a spring that ensures a good contact for each driver on the rails. But a missing spring should not prevent the engine from working... sounds like something is blocking the wheels and preventing them from turning.
Simon
EDIT: Ed beat me to it!
If you do indeed have a dislodged driving box spring, a tiny bit of Labelle PTFE grease — or similar — will help hold them in place while you reseat the boxes and get the cover plate back on.
Regards, Ed
I have three of there 2-4-4-2 Little River engines. One was a basket case when I got it so it came completly apart. If yours is like mine it is a driver spring, I can also tell you that the bearings are fragle. One of mine was broken so be very carefull when reassembling and disassembling as the sides will break off them.
As ED stated use grease to hold them in place when reasembling.
I made mine all wheel pick up so I have no problems with poor electrical contact.
Hope this helps ?
T.C.
It's an exercise in patience and determination. EVERYTHING must line up as before and be fully set back in place. The spring(s), the axles and their 'bearing boxes' fully home up against the springs, the cranks all in quarter, the pins and rods all folded the right way, or angled the right way, whichever words make the right picture...and of course the gears must be fully meshed again. If everything is back in place, lubed, not cracked or broken...or missing...it should work, provided the motor is sound and powered.
I would suggest taking the motor out if you havent allready ?
Makes it much easier to tell if all is working properly.
I have three Oriental Powerhouse USRA Light Mikado locomotives, and I have taken one all the way down to nothing for a complete rebuild. I kept very good notes as I took it apart.
These do not have sprung drivers.
The only two springs I know of on the locomotive are one for the drawbar and one for the pilot truck. The spring on the pilot truck falls out easily, and I don't worry about this one because the locomotive tracks better without it. I hard wire my motors to the tender, so the drawbar spring goes away too.
The tender has two springs that press the trucks up against the tender floor, and then the tender trucks are held in place by a weird cotter pin thing that gets bent over. This is a bad design. I replace my tender trucks with plastic trucks with metal wheels and add 8 wheel electrical pickup to the tender.
So, in the end, mine have no springs. From the factory there are four. Yes, it will run fine with none of them.
I hope this helps.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Thanks to all for the info. No way these springs are for the pilot truck and drawbar wish they were. This unit has been a challenge since day 1 (cow catcher could not negotiate a re-railer). The springs definitely come from something in the driver area since they "exploded" when I took the cover plate out and tried to apply some lubricant to the drivers... found two other ones later on... so now there are 4 (although one has gone awol recently). I am running w/o those springs and it runs (poorly). I do see some occasional arching in the drivers, so could be related to no springs? The pilot derails 25% of the time heading into a turnout (the direct path, no the divergent) did check wheels, they meet NMRA specs. No spring like other makers... bummer. may try a tiny bit of weight there. The tender is pretty nasty too. I guess I'm going to rip the whole thing apart again, since it's pretty useless as is. Could become a display piece. Certainly the most dissapointing purchase (bad value equation) in my brief modelling career.
Mine is pretty springy when I apply a bit of pressure on the boiler, and one seller on Ebay described his as being driver sprung... Maybe Kevin owns an older version. Perhaps the folks at Bowser can send you springs that would fit. Mine runs very smoothly... But the tender is a write-off, I agree!