Hello All,
I had some help from a friend who is into RC Aircraft and he had a tool that we used and managed to mushroom the pin!
So far, so good.
Thanks to all for your input.
As it is usually the case, there are many options to address the problem. Hopefully it will be resolved successfully, whichever route is taken.
Simon
snjroy Before installing an entirely new valve gear, I would do what Wayne suggested. I have done that in the past. That piece of equipment does not play a role in the actual motorisation of the engine, it's just a piece that moves up and down with very small pressure on it. So even a little mushroom shape created with a pair of pliers will do the job. You just want to prevent the piece from falling out... I've made rivets with small pieces of copper wire, in some cases plastic, by mushrooming one end, inserting the piece, and mushrooming the other end with pliers (or using heat, in the case of a plastic piece). Good luck! Simon
Before installing an entirely new valve gear, I would do what Wayne suggested. I have done that in the past. That piece of equipment does not play a role in the actual motorisation of the engine, it's just a piece that moves up and down with very small pressure on it. So even a little mushroom shape created with a pair of pliers will do the job. You just want to prevent the piece from falling out... I've made rivets with small pieces of copper wire, in some cases plastic, by mushrooming one end, inserting the piece, and mushrooming the other end with pliers (or using heat, in the case of a plastic piece).
Good luck!
Well agreed, but there just seemed to be a lot of question as to how to do this repair.
The whole valve gear assembly comes of this loco pretty easily. Should not be hard to fix or replace.
Sheldon
Well, I'm mobile device handicapped, and this web site does not work right. So I can't seem to copy and paste.
Www.bachmann.com
Click on parts and service, click on order parts, click on HO, click on 2-8-0, page 2 of the parts, H11408-B
Give him the stock number of the part and a link to the page where he can order it.
Bachmann has the part in stock, you can buy a whole siderod/valve gear set for $15.
By now, I would have been on the phone with Bachmann. Don't talk to the woman who answers, she will simply tell you to send the loco in for repair or replacement. Explain to her, though, that you know the problem and ask, demand, to speak to Tech Support to describe the problem and confirm that the loco can be fixed if you send it in. If you can reach Tech Support, they will quickly grasp the problem since it is so obvious. They can assure you that they have the parts and expertise to fix it - - or not. But if they cannot fix it and perform a permanent repair, can you?
Rich
Alton Junction
I can't draw from a phone, but the sequence is this: From the outside, the small rivet goes through the hole in the combination lever, then the small piece of paper or card stock used as a spacer, then the hole in the little piston rod piece (which will locate the valve gear position correctly). Look at the arrangement on the 'undamaged' side to see the symmetry if necessary.
You will need some way to keep the gear from shifting and 'cocking' the rivet while you work, and keep the rivet pushed in and square with both rods. I would put a little wax or lubricant between the paper and combination lever to keep solder wicking into the joint there. The pivot is going to be between the shaft of the rivet and the holes in al the pieces except the little piston rod; instead of making a 'head' on the back end of the rivet by expanding it, you're soldering it to the back side of the piston rod with a blob of solder that stays out of entering the actual hole in the piston rod if you can manage that.
As noted, Wix or similar low-temperature solder and compatible flux will make this easier to arrange. If you have a 'buddy' who can hold the parts in alignment while you work the iron and solder chip there is greater likelihood of getting it right and tight... but if it solidifies 'wrong' just apply a little more momentary heat until you can get it aligned.
Hawks Rule Hello rrebell, I like your theory. Any chance you can add a picture or drawing, just to make it a little more clear? Thanks
Hello rrebell,
I like your theory. Any chance you can add a picture or drawing, just to make it a little more clear?
Thanks
I had to repair a rivet on a friend's oriental limited powerhouse 2-8-2 recently, as others have mentioned above, some bowser rivets and a tool is super useful for dealing with these repairs. The rivets and tool together costs under $10 and allows you to save lots of money on sending in the repair.
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Modeling the PRR & NYC in HO
Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/@trainman440
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It will help to use Tix solder and flux, which are special low-temperature high-strength. (I advise using the special flux together with the special solder.)
There are even lower-temperature solders but they tend to be expensive and hard to find in hobby quantity. There was one such solder advertised as a 'miracle product' a few months ago... another used to be sold as an emergency repair that 'works with the heat of a match'.
(I was reminded of this by seeing Ed mention in in the Micron Brass thread.)
I was just looking around the net the other day and found a potental solution yo the problem. What they did was put a peice of card between thev two parts. Insert the pin and soulder the end that is sopposed to be mushroomed to the part the mushroomed end is against. Remove the card which should give enough slack for the peices to rotate easily. No trying to do perfect mushrooms this way and you may never lose a pin again in that place.
If for some reason there isn't an easy way to 'form' the mushroom to hold the rivet, you could always use a toothpick-tip load of a thick non-capillary-wicking glue like Walthers Goo or E-6000 applied between the back of the reach rod and the back end of the rivet, with the paper applied to set the spacing and some sort of clamping to hold the pieces in alignment as the adhesive sets up. The important thing would be to ensure that the head and shaft of the rivet can work properly in the hole in the combination lever; you might want to put a tiny drop of appropriate LaBelle oil in that joint after everything has set up a couple of days and the paper has been taken out.
Many thanks to Selector, Overmod, Wayne and Rich!
You all have great suggestions and I will try to apply what you have come up with!
Also, I will look at the Bowser tool.
Again, my thanks to everyone!
It seems to me that this is the type of failure that Bachmann ought to be able to fix. No special parts required. If they were to say they cannot fix it, then what can they fix? For Bachmann, it seems simple. For one of us, not so simple.
Well, if the rivet has come out of the valve gear, it should also be possible to re-insert it.
Once it's back in place, put something solid (a piece of metal or even the blunt end of pliers) against the head of the rivet, to fully seat it, which should show how much material is on the backside of the joint.
If there's enough, you should be able to use the pliers to both hold the rivet in-place and to deform the material that's sticking through the connection so that it doesn't drop out...don't squeeze it too tight, or the parts won't be able to move.
As mentioned, a valve gear rivet from Bowser should allow a repair if the current rivet is no longer useful.
If you have some suitably-sized wire on hand (that will fit through the holes in those parts) you could make your own replacement rivet.
Solder a piece of brass sheet stock (or bigger diameter wire) onto one end of the wire (to act as the head of the new rivet), then cut off the wire so that it's slightly longer than needed. Use a suitably-sized drill bit to make a hole in the cut end of the wire, and when you think it's deep enough, install your homemade rivet.
Next, use the point of a draughting compass or a similar item to enlarge the outer portion of the drilled-out material, so that the rivet can't slip out of the holes through which it has passed. To ensure that the new rivet will stay in place, use the pliers, one side over the soldered-on head of the rivet, and the other portion on the slightly deformed end...give it a not-too-tight squeeze to further deform the unseen end, and your loco should be ready to go again.
Many years ago, I did the process, outlined above, for this Bachmann loco, but I don't recall which side it was that had a failure similar to yours....
In any case, it's still running with the same homemade rivet.
Wayne
The thing we need to see 'most' is a closeup of the pin that came out. It is a tiny rivet, with a head on one end and a tubular portion in the other end that is expanded ('mushroomed') to hold it in place.
This is not like the kind of pin that is inserted to a friction fit (we discussed one of those a few weeks ago). Until it is either 'riveted in' or otherwise secured it will just keep falling out.
We discussed the special tool from Bowser that helps secure these: it is shaped with a tip that forms the 'mushroom' smoothly around 360 degrees; you use something like a thin piece of paper with a small hole in it between the reach rod and the piston-valve rod to set the clearance spacing as you set the rivet, and the remove it (burning if necessary to get it out!) so it works smoothly without binding.
The problem is going to be getting the valve gear off to where you can put the head of the rivet flat against an anvil surface or vise and hammer against the other end. Bowser designs its gear to be installed after riveting together -- I don't know if you can easily remove the necessary pieces on the Spectrum engine without more surgery.
What might work is to make (or kludge) a tool using thin-nose pliers, putting a small cone or 'mushrooming guide' on the inside of one jaw. This would let you expand the back side of the small rivet 'in place' (with the paper as described above) without deforming or breaking it in the process.
That is the combination lever, and the pin that's not behaving is on the valve rod. The piston is inside the larger cylinder below the valve cylinder (not that our models really have 'pistons' in there...heh!)
My guess is that the back of that pin, the end closest to the frame of the locomotive, is not 'mushroomed' sufficiently, but I can't tell from any of the evidence.
I think most repair people would want to remove the valve gear and rod assembly entirely, lay it flat on something, and then try to peen or pound the end through a series of carefully measured blows, maybe with a sharper drift pin, to try to get that end to expand a bit. Ideally, that treatment wouldn't also expand the shank some and make it bind, thus confounding the repair entirely.
Can someone reading help this fella out?
It was a sad day for me when my Bachmann/Spectrum 2-8-0 was sent to the repair track. Mine had a different failure.
Maybe a valve gear rivet from Bowser will work.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
I was running my 2-8-0, when one of the pistons came out.
I took the Loco off the track and found that it is attached by a tiny pin.
I re-attached the pin with the cylinder and it came off again.
Any way of fixing this?
Here are some photos: