Noisy Forney gears

[MRRSparky]

I have two of these and one runs relatively quietly, the other is quite noisy.  Enough so that it can be heard over the sound of the sound decoder. 

I've pulled the bottom cover off and applied a small touch of plastic-compatible gear lube, Labelle 106, to all three gears, with no reduction in the noise.  It has had very little run time, probably less than an hour, but as loud as it is, I can't see that more break-in time is going to change things.

Short of sending it to Bachmann to repair, is there anything more that I can do?  I am very hesitant to return it as I have cut off the Forney coal bunker and removed the trailing truck, added an after-market tender, hard-wired the sound decoder after removing the Bachmann supplemental boards, and hard-wired the tender to the loco.

Any help will be appreciated.

Scott Groff

[richg]

I just looked at the diagram and I see the traditional drive. A metal worm on the motor drives a worm gear which has a small spur gear that drives the spur gear on the driver shaft. I belove I see what might be a flywheel on the opposite end of the motor. Not sure.
Is the sound a clicking, maybe a rubbing sound?

I have never had to do it but some claim some locos with plastic gears need a break in. Over the years, I have seen some who clean off the gears with alcohol. Coat them with a thin coating of tooth paste and run the loco for a while as some plastic gears might have a rough edge on a tooth. Clean the gears and apply gear lub.
I guess there could be a possibility of a cracked gear but that would be more difficult to find.
You might remove the motor and see how the loco runs as you push it on the tracks by hand. Maybe let is roll down an incline. Maybe even push it with another loco.

Rich

[richg]

By the way, NWSL says, YOU CAN'T WEAR A GEAR IN -YOU CAN ONLY WEAR IT OUT!

http://www.nwsl.com/uploads/chapter_4_test_2.pdf

Be careful of the suggestion about wearing in the gear. Gear installations are designed with certain amount of backlash. Too much backlash and the noise will be louder.

Many brands of locos use inexpensive plastic gears which sometimes do crack. That sometimes is the downside of some less expensive locos.

Labelle 106 with w/PTFE is a very good gear lubricant which I have used for sometime. It clings to the teeth very well.

Rich

[jpipkin]

I have had a noisy non-sound equipped Forney for several years.  Despite everything I have done to it, it still is noisy.  On a positive note it is a superb runner.

Jim   

[dutchbuilder]

I have the same noise problems with my three 4-4-0 Americans and a Forney.....must be the design.
The rest of my collection is silent running!

Ton

[MRRSparky]

I had two Forneys, one a lot noisier than the other.  One required a start voltage setting of 10 to even get going.  So I moved the motor from the quieter one to the worst one and it calmed down enough for me to feel comfortable selling it.

For the donor Forney, I ordered a NWSL motor and worm gear.  I found it impossible to remove the OEM worm.  It was affixed so tightly that I bent the steel plate in my NWSL Puller trying to remove it.  I finally broke part of a tooth off the gear, trying to get it off.

When I tried to buy a replacement motor from Bachmann, I was told the cost was $170!!!!!!  I assume that was because the motor was not available without buying a new frame.  Hell, you buy an entire new loco online for $125.

Anyways, I had to experiment a LOT to get the NWSL gear to mesh quietly with the OEM driven gear.  It wound up being just barely in touch with the driven gear, totally opposite of how gears  should be set up.  It isn't totally quiet but it is better than it was.