0-6-0 drive wheel alignment

[Crispy]

  My Bachmann 0-6-0 has a bumping sound as it goes around the track.

  I had the drive wheel assembly off recently and may not have gotten it

  back on right.

  Is there a way to align it back again?

                                                    Thanks, Crispy

[Yampa Bob]

Hi Crispy,
The noise you hear might be the side rods flexing due to the driver cranks not being properly aligned.  All the drivers on a side must have the cranks at the same rotational angle. 

If you need to realign a driver, be sure to hold the axle with pliers while rotating the wheel, otherwise you might cause a misalignment on the other side.

Regards

[Jim Banner]

   Is there a way to align it back again?

The only accurate way is to use a quartering jig, available from NorthWest Short Line and others.  As Bob has pointed out, even a small error like 5^o can cause problems.  With a quartering jig you can set the wheels to within 1^o or better.

Jim

[richG]

This is the NWSL quarterer that I and others use. This is a pretty good price.

http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/product_p/53-44-4.htm

Rich

[Yampa Bob]

I can see the concept of the "quartering jig", however, on several occasions I have aligned a wheel on a side to match the other drivers without removing the side rods.

If I were to completely disassemble a driver set for a rebuild then I might be more inclined to buy or build a jig, but thus far I haven't found a need for one.