Failure!

Fresh from the success of repairing the Hornby Class 156 DMU and fitting a DCC chip into the Lima Class 117 DMU I thought that I would grab another loco that required a chip. Should have been a simple job but this one has, at the moment, ended in failure!

I bought this las year at the Bingham Model Railway Show for a bargain £25.

It is a great looking little shunter, ideal for my USA switching layout.

With the body off it should have been an easy job to solder in a DCC chip to the circuit board.

I had never run this model as the original owner had removed part of the circuit board so that the motor was disconnected from the pickups. I decided just to check all was well before going any further. 

A 9 volt battery is enough to power a model loco. The motor turned over but jammed after a second. reversing the polarity did the same thing. 

I had an inkling as to what was wrong so one of the bogies was dismantled revealing this.

This is a problem that besets locos of a certain vintage when the use of plastic gear wheels instead of metal became popular. The plastic eventually fails resulting in the part splitting which causes the issue of the motor jamming or a rough running loco if it still moves.

Replacements are both rare and expensive if you can find them (£48 for four gears on eBay!) so repair is the initial option. Superglue can work so that was my first step.

Unfortunately, my trial on one of the gears failed! The next option is to sleeve the shaft of the gear with some brass tubing. The WMD Stores strangely did not have any of the right diameter!

So, for the moment, the model is back in its box awaiting me finding some brass tube of the right diameter. Failure for now but maybe not in the long run!