Slipping universals

[mosslake1]

My climax seems to have developed a problem with the universals to both trucks. It seems the 'U' piece that plugs onto the drive shaft slips when the loco runs into a curve.
Is this a common occurance with these locos and how is it rectified?

Cheers,
Russ

[Stevelewis]

Never  experienced  this  in  many  years  of  running  Climaxes,  and  some of  them  run  on quite  tight  curves,  sorry  I cannt  suggest  a  cure,   It  seems  strange  that  your  problem occurs  on BOTH  trucks though,  are  your  curves  VERY  tight  say  less  than  15" radius?

[mosslake1]

No, not as tight as 15", closer to 17" maybe.

[railtwister]

My Climax suffered the same symptoms, in addition to having the well known split gears problem, and my loco had only been run for about 10 feet back & forth on a straight test track at the time of purchase. The cracked universals have been mentioned enough on this list to indicate it is a fairly common issue, but unlike the gears, it can sometimes be fixed with a dab of superglue. Probably the best fix, however would be replacement of the cracked components, and the parts for mine were included in the gear replacement package provided by Bachmann during their gear replacement program. Contact their parts department for more information as mentioned in this post about the gear replacement program: <http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,23566.0.html>.

Bill in FtL

[mosslake1]

Thanks for the information Bill. That'll give me something to work on  .