4-6-0 drivers out of quarter, how to correct?

[Anonymous]

Hello all, I have an older Rivarossi 4-6-0 loco, the Illinois Central RR Casey Jones type. I bought it at an outdoor swap meet and brought it home and found it would not run. Turns out the motor is not the problem, the right-side driver on the rear-most axle is rotated slightly ahead of its partners and the connecting rod binds up, so the drivers won't turn. Should have noticed it while inspecting it, but missed it. Anyway, the drivers are pressed onto the axle, can this be rotated back into proper orientation by hand without shattering all the spokes, or does it need to be pulled of the axle, oriented properly and pressed back on?
-Hank

[lesterperry]

If it is out of quarter more than likely the spline on the axle or in the center of the wheel is gone. Which means that it will not stay in quarter. You might pull it off of the axle get it set correctly ( which may require a jig ) and then glue it in place. I had a bachman do this had to take it ot LHS (which many people see no need for) The owner there had a jig and reset it for me. He glued the wheel in place but it didn't last very long.

[Pruitt]

I've seen few model loco drivers with splined axles - drives the cost up too much.

Get a quartering jig from NWSL. That will allow you to accurately reset the quartering yourself. Once the loco is operating properly again, put a small bit ( < a drop) of CA on the axle end, and make sure it wicks into the wheel-axle joint.

[Eriediamond]

A quartering jig is one of those tools that I would want if I were doing a lot of repair work on steam engines. However it is not necessarily needed here. My suggestion would be to remove complete chassis from the engine, remove the motor frm the chassis so the wheels will rotate freely. With the side rods still connected you can carefully tweak the driver back into quarter and check this by rolling it down the track by hand. Just keep tweaking until it rolls freely. Now before anything else, check the wheel gauge on all the axles. If they are correct then use a very small drop of thin Ca to hold it in place. Now lets consider the cause of the wheel getting out of quarter because this will determine how long our repair will last. I have seen some locos that have gotten out of quarter by someone not familiar with HO trying to turn the wheels by hand, but with older locos a lot of this is caused by improper lubrication with improper lubricants. If oil is used that is not plastic friendly, it will over a period of time soften the hub area and loosen the wheel enough to cause it to get out of quarter by it self. In this case Ca my hold but more then likely fail in a short time. Anyhow good luck on your repair job and hopefully the old gal will be back pounding the rails again. Ken

[Virginian]

You can get by by making a jig and do it without a quartering jig if it's a rare thing, but you are going to need a wheel puller/press. Also, the NWSL quarterer doesn't fit all wheelsets, and some wheelsets aren't set at 90 degrees ( a quarter of a circle), so you would have to redo all axles to match using a quarterer. One thing I have found to work fairly well is to remove the wheel from the axle, file a flat on the axle and a small groove in the bore in the wheel that will match up with the flat on the axle, and then reinstall the wheel with a very small amount of two part epoxy in the wheel hub (I smeared it in with a toothpick). This way any excess gets pushed to the outside, and the epoxy will fill the void keeping the wheel in place. You have four or five minutes to check your gauge and to get your quarter right after putting the wheel back on the axle.

[Anonymous]

You don't need to buy any of that crap they are telling you to buy. Just pack it up and send it to me. I'll give it a good home. [:D]

[Anonymous]

I appreciate the suggestions. I can't tell for sure, but it looks as thought the axles are not splined, so maybe I can take the driver between thumb and forefinger and twist it back into proper rotation, then roll the chassis down the track as Eriediamond suggested until it feels right.
I'll try it, but if it is on the axle tightly and doesn't want to budge I'll quit, I don't want to shear off the spokes, in that case I guess a visit to LHS would be in order to see if they have a press. The 'soft key' using epoxy sounds like a good idea to keep in mind if the same problem re-occurs.
As to how it occurred in the first place, the out-of-quarter axle is being driven by the worm gear, the forward axles are driven by the connecting rods. The left side driver has a traction tire, maybe after enough starts when the worm starts turning, the axle and right driver start to rotate but the left driver sticks to the track to get the train started and over time starts to fall behind, possibly it is the left driver that is rotated on the axle, although it has the same clocking as the other left side drivers. Anyway, I hope it isn't too hard to correct.
-Hank

[Pruitt]

Yeah, you can do it the way Ken suggested. The first time I had A problem with drivers out of quarter was on a Mantua Pacific (HO scale). After fidding with it for several hours I got everything into sync and it ran okay. The driver sets weren't necessarily in quarter, but they were all out by the same amount, so the loco ran fine.

If you're gonna be messing with steamer mechanisms much, though, a quartering jig is a wise investment, though as Virginian said, the NWSL jig doesn't fit all wheelsets.