I realised that I haven't really posted anything about my one, mostly, stalwart performer on the layout, locomotive #452. I say mostly stalwart because I did have some initial problems with her after putting a chip in. Not that the chip cause any difficulties, but the model just stopped being able to pull cars.
I looked and found that only one power truck was actually working, and the other was just dragging on the whole locomotive. So I took the model apart and found that the universal joint on the gear train was rotating freely on the shaft. Pretty much a definition of not a good thing as you'll ever find in model railroading.
I ended up having to disassemble the whole motor drive train to be able to fix this problem, and noted that the universal joint had been jimmied to fit during assembly at some point prior to me buying the model, which I think was the reason it failed.
However, after re-powering locomotive #454, I thought why not go back and sort out the drive train on #452 the same way, and sort out the ride height at the same time. How hard can it be the second time round?
So here she is all disassembled and showing the old motor with the new replacement Mashima 1424 for size comparison. I stole the flywheels, with their built in universal joints, off #457, which has fast become the locomotive that one steals bits off to get the others running. Very "real world" operating department'ish.
Unlike my other two steeplecabs this model comes from The Car Works, and is wired to pick up with live wheels on one side of each bogie. So I am going to have to insulate the motor from the chassis.
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