New 4-4-0 IF runs good but noisy gears.

[bigblock454]

   Greetings all!! Nice board!! Well, like subject says: She's pretty noisy, especially on my 1" x 4" x 8' test track (acts like a soundboard). Is this normal? Perhaps some lube and a little break-in time?? Thanks for any help. She's not sound equipped yet, but taking tsunami decoder out of my new 4-6-0 (runs like a gem) and transplanting into 4-4-0 with upgraded spkr. Thanks again!!

Norm II

[jpipkin]

Interesting that you brought that up.  I was just thinking about one of my locomotives, a non sound equipped Forney.  Even with proper break in and lubrication it is still noisy.  However it runs like a fine watch and ran beautifully in a recent train show.  Despite best efforts, some locomotives just seem born to be noisy. 

Jim

[bigblock454]

   Oh well... maybe the upgraded speaker will be loud enough to drown out the gears!    I still have to "break-in" and lube (the 4-6-0 ran great out of the box). I wonder if worm gear needs "shimming". Anybody else's 4-4-0 (IF) a little noisy? Put in big order today to "Clinchfield" for a bunch of high end speakers to experiment with, and a new decoder for the 4-6-0. Thanks for answering, maybe we'll get some more comments.

Norm II

[bigblock454]

Woops... meant "Litchfield", not "Clinchfield"... sorry

Norm II

[oldie but goodie]

I agree. My 4 4 0 is also noisy but it runs great. Not real sure how to lube the gears or what I should use to do so. I'm also having trouble with the little bar that connects from the engine to the tender to stay in place and the tender and cars end up being pulled around with the plugs from the tender to the engine. I think that may be too much stress on the plugs.

[bobwrgt]

On the drawbar of all my steam engines I took a small piece of plastic tube or house wire insulation and use it to push on the drawbar shaft to keep them together. Works fine when lifting off the tracks also. You can always remove it later.

Bob

[oldie but goodie]

Thanks Bob What a great idea. American igenuity. Thanks for reminding me of the proper word for that. Drawbar. Thanks again.

[bigblock454]

   Good idea indeed! One could use a slice of r/c nitro fuel line or an o-ring to just that also. Well let the little 4-4-0 run for a looong time and seemed to be a lot "quieter". Will clean/lube and check'er out today. Party (loudness) here last night, and "spirits" were high, so couldn't hear much (and probably wouldn't remember what I heard)  The noise she made sounds almost like if you were trying to slow the little plastic (is it plastic?) gear on the axle with your finger nail or something. Would be a noisier at certain rpm's and hardly audible at all at other rpms. Like I mentioned earlier, my "test track" is a 1 x 4 piece of pine (8' long) that acts like a soundboard. As a matter of fact, I usually hear the noise coming from somewhere other than the loco. Our "pike" is primarily 2" foam, so that should quiet things down if I don't solve it, but I'm confident I will. Thanks for posting!

Norm

[bigblock454]

   Well the lil 4-4-0 is still quite noisy. Don't know if this is common to these locos or not. "Oldie but goodie" mentions that his is noisy as well. I did drop the gear cover, cleaned, inspected and re-lubed with no change. Don't know if it's a worm to gear interference that could be producing this noise, or maybe I'm hearing an "electrical noise" that just SOUNDS mechanical... Time to dig deeper I suppose. I'm "all ears", to anything anyone can add or suggest. I feel like I hear this noise transmitting through the track louder than the loco itself! I installed tsunami sound in it, and at the right RPM's I hear the noise over the chuffs! Thanks for any help.

Norm

[NarrowMinded]

Ive had a few noisy loco's seems like running them backwards for a few hours during break in helps a little for me, and some that I thought had gear noise turned silent after adding a good decoder. 

With that tsunami you may be able to tweak it so it goes quieter, I'm just starting to play with these features myself, I had the Decoder guru play with a rail truck I had a tsu1000 hid under a load in back and it runs quieter then before.

NM

P.S. I put the decoder from the rail truck in my Christmas trolley that was noisy and it was still noisy (MOTOR) on DCC, but on DC it runs silent not sure why but even my kids HO Thomas runs quiet on dc with a decoder set for dc running.

[lvrr325]

I have two identical outside frame Forneys - same stock number - one's noisy, one's quiet.  I assume the gears just need a throrough break in to quiet it down.

[bigblock454]

   Thanks NM and LVRR325. Funny, my father also wondered if what we are hearing was "electrical". I truly believe it is mechanical. First of all I can change the noise or even make it go away while it is running on the rollers by putting weight and putting that weight on one side more than the other. Also I changed from the regular Bachmann decoder, to the Backmann tsunami from my 4-6-0 (that is still waiting for it's new tsunami decoder from Litchfield), and it made same noise with both. I also ran for hours on the rollers hoping to quiet her down (after a good clean and lube). May strip her down to paint and weather, and have a look "under the hood". Hope I don't sound to "narrow minded" (sorry)  and I'm certainly open to the "electrical noise" theory, I'll let you know anything I find out. Wonder if I can video rec (to demonstrate noise) and post somewhere... haven't done that before.Thanks again!

Norm (PS gonna start another thread. Question about 4-6-0 decoder install, if you can help. Thanks)

[NarrowMinded]

if you can try running it on dc and see if the noise changes

[bigblock454]

  You're right! I got an MRC Tech II (or something) hiding in a closet around here... might as well blow the dust off of it. I can safely just set the loco on a dc track?? Didnt know if I had to configure a cv first. Thanks NM.

Norm

[NarrowMinded]

Yes you can set it on dc with out changing the cv, and it will do no harm, TSU1000's are dual mode and are made to run on both. As far as CV's go I seem to remember my Tsunami diesle decoder came with the cv set to stop on dc(the sound and lights came on but no forward or reverse) but my Tsunami light steam was already set to run on DC.
All the bachmann decoders I salvaged frome rail trucks and Davenports are dual mode as well run on DC or DCC.

the above also is true for your transplanted tsunami decoder

NM