How do you take the hitch out of a gear train.

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

So after replacing some parts in my NWSL Little Joe it runs better than it did before. For those of you who have one and haven’t taken the time to upgrade the wheelsets, I HIGHLY recommend them, along with new gear shafts.

For purposes of the discussion right is lead power truck and left is trailing power truck. The right side is smooth as glass and when power is applied. I think it would move the enigne easily with just the one side powered.

The left side though has still has a problem. When I turn the lead into the gear tower ther is a hitch in the smooth movement of the gearing. At first I thought it was caused by a washer not being in the correct place, but that only solved part of the problem. By removing the gears and turning them individually I found that at least the gears are not having a problem turning indivdually. I was able to further isolate the problem to the center idler gear (see caption). I have since swapped the motor gear for the idler gear and that has resolved some of the issue, I just don’t know if by doing that I have screwed up the gear ratio’s. They look the same, but I don’t have caliper to measure the diameters to see if anything has changed. Additionally the gears look…rounded. Which is say that they look as if something as chewed on the flat sides of the gears, turning what should be a flat gear (looking at the sides) into a ovoid of some type. Do you think I should bite the bullet and replace these gears? When power is applied to this side (an power is disconnected from the right) it doesn’t seem to be nearly as free flowing as the right side. The motor seems to have really work to get those gears to move. It’s better since I swapped the two, but again I don’t know if I did anything to the gear ratio.

Any and all help is welcomed.

[URL=http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2687267710048277291mWMHRl][IMG]http://inlinethumb12.webshots.com/42955/26

2

IT kinda sounds to me like you might have had the gears meshed too tightly together. Is this run off of a worm? If so, you might want to check and see if that is pressing down on the gear too tightly. ideally, you want just a tiny amount of space between the two, but not enough for there to be a lot of "slop"between the gears. One way to check is to feed a piece of paper between the gears as you turn them by hand. If the paper goes in easily, they should be meshed properly. If it gets horribly mangled in the process, they’re too tight.

If all else fails, contact NWSL…they should be able to help. They’re good with gears. [:)]

3

No the worms are down in the truck, the ones in the tower are all standard gears. By horribly mangled, I assume that it “eats” the paper instead of just gumming it?

4

That would be a correct assumption. [:)]