Does your Heavy Mountain make a racket? Read this for a fix....

[James Hail]

My Brand new Heavy mountain started making a funny noise like a wheel wiper dragging.....Nope.....it was the worm shaft endplay letting the shaft (belt pully end) touch the frame casting.

There are NO thrust bearings ect to keep the shaft endplay at bay......this is also where the surging comes from in worm driven locos.......Worm shafts MUST not have eccessive (.010 to.025 thous.) endplay!!!

I pulled the driver frame from the motor/belt frame and installed a small brass shim,formed in a L shape between the frame and the worm shaft and pully taking out the shaft endplay and BINGO.......problem solved.

There were also little clear yellow shims on the driver frame where it mates with the motor plate/frame around .003 or so thick (that look like stickers)used to set gear mesh....these can get loose(adheasive and gearbox lube mix ruining the adheasive and the shim may float around if its loose and not pinned down by the frameset ) and foul the gearbox/pully also if not secure....Use a hobby knife and dip the tip in CA and wick into the shim/frame to secure.


Att:  Bachmann factory........Worm shafts need thrust bearing surfaces....Basic 101 drivetrain "math" folks.

This has been a issue in train gearboxes since dirt was made.....!

Lots of Endplay and Worms don't mix....The worms get upset 8oP

Jim Hail

[TonyD]

Yep yep yep. A fella with a 2-8-0 or ten wheeler, posted a few weeks ago- that was making a hiss, I have a feeling his was doing just what yours is. Couple years ago I bought a junked spec. 2-8-0 -it had stripped gears. I had to pay bach part dept $25 for a set of 4 axles, which immediately stripped,,,'cause of the lack of thurst washers on the worm, which I didn't notice or suspect sooner. But, there are people on this site that insist we pay 3 digit retail and should expect to do further tweeking and customizing to make it run well.....yep yep yep.

[Atlantic Central]

This is interesting, I have never heard of this problem before. I have six Spectrum Heavy Mountain's, all quiet as a church mouse.

Sheldon

[James Hail]

The only Bachmann steamer i have thats church mouse quiet is my K4.....and with the NCE decoder she crawls nice carrying 6 lighted model power (lighting by me,battery powered 12 leds,2 per car) Old time PRR
truss rod passenger cars and a bobber caboose.

Im surprised how smooth it glides along now.......Shes got a few hours on the clock now.

My Connie is a Close second but still breaking in.......The Mountain is running fine now,and getting her share of track time.

Jim

[Yampa Bob]

If my Connies are pulling a lot of cars, after about 3 rounds it gets a bit noisy. I took one completely apart, only to discover the drive wheels were out of quarter.  I also found some burrs in the casting, so I polished all the bearing surfaces.  The worm gear end play seemed fine at the time, so I  lubed and it ran fine for awhile.

Anyway, when it gets noisy, I  run reverse for a round, then back to forward and its quiet again.  The noise only happens when more than 15 or 16  cars are hooked up.

Adding a teflon or delrin thrust bearing might be the answer.  If the worm gear shifts a tad, it shouldn't affect the idler gears, but may be displacing the grease and rubbing on the casting. 

Jim, is it possible to install  L shaped brass shim(s) without pulling the motor/belt drive? It's been a while since I did the fine tuning and don't remember.

Bob 

[James Hail]

I didn't shim my connie...I exchanged it for new....Its ok right now....but you must tear them down to get to anything.

On the connie you would need circular shims and pull the worm shaft to put them in....complete Loco teardown. I dont think my mountain method would work here....different frame.

Jim

[Virginian]

Okay James, you are correct, BUT
1) it would cost more money.
2) the loads are so light it usually doesn't matter.
3) we would have to train umpteem assemblers who have zero idea what a thousandth even is.
4) most buyers who take apart their locos would screw it up when they did.

Solution - just keep on keeping on, and the folks like you and me who are troubled by such things will fix it themselves.  Ditto for the little motor armatures.  Let us concentrate on more important things like making some people very rich pimping alcohol as a lovely shade of green, even though it results in a huge increase in "greenhouse" gasses per mile driven.

[James Hail]

Alcohol is meant to be burned in Airplane engines during the summer months.....I fly RC .

Global warming is a socialist ideal.....spoon fed to mind numb masses that feel the need for more bigger government and wont be happy until we pay 50% of or wages in taxes and let the government raise us like children.

30 years ago they said it was the second coming of the ice age and we all were gonna freeze to death.

They cant predict mondays weather........Let alone tell you whats going to happen 30 years from now.

Oh yea remember y2k.........same sheep fell for that one.......Lemmings....all of them.

Jim

[rogertra]

I'm with jim.  30 years ago it was the coming ice age.

Global warming is just and excuse for politicians to increase taxes under the guise of reducing green house gasses, the cause of global warming.

Bull feathers.  Where I live, 25,000 years ago was under a mile of ice.  100,000 years ago it was tropical.  What did green house gases have to do with that?

Oh right, I forgot.  Dinosaur farts!

[Atlantic Central]

Oh yes, global warming the new "religon" of the liberals. Such hubris to think we are so powerful.

Mt St Hellens last eruption put more products of combustion into the atmosphere than all the cars that have ever exsisted. How could we be causing whatever climate change that might be happening?

If the mother ship beamed us all up tomorrow, mother nature would erase most of what we have done in a few short centuries and hardly leave a mark.

And all six of my Heavy Mountains, all three of my 2-6-6-2's, all five of my 2-8-0's, and both my 4-6-0's run just fine the way Bachmann built them.

Sheldon

[RAM]

We have had global warming ever since the ice age.

[NWsteam]

I love all my Bachmann products and I have never had a major problem that I didn't cause in the first place.

Global Warming is happening, look at the weather and how the climate around you is changing.  In late January it 64 degrees outside for two to three days.  You bet we set a record.  It is debatable if its caused by nature or by us.  Is it a mixture of both?  I would say so.  I would definitely consider myself conservative, and I don’t agree with the statement that this is some liberal "religon".  It is uneducated to deny we play some part global warming.

Here is to Bachmann making many more quality products for years to come.

[Atlantic Central]

NWsteam,

I don't know where you live but I have lived in the Mid Atlantic all my life (50 years) and remember many a shirt sleeve Christmas day and many a frozen river. Climate changes, but as you pointed it out, there little clear evidence we are the cause. Even if we are contributing to it, how much, 1%?, 1/2 of 1%? Nothing we can do will change the outcome.

Sheldon