Did anyone else ever have this problem with an IHC or any loco. I removed the plastic truck cover on the underside of a almost new IHC Hudson to check the lub. Whe I put it back to gether, the drivers seem out of wack, sqeak, bind, and jam at low speed. I can see there is lots of play and “wiggling” to do to get the trucsk to lie in their plastic journals/slots, but every try I make yields the same problem. I’ve put them in and out, flexed every which way, and still no good. I’m ready to take this loco apart for junk. Don’t really like IHC anyway.
Did it work ok prior to taking it apart? If so you’ve got something out of place. Check to make sure drivers are in right order and gears are meshing properly.
Try:
- Assemble drivers with valve gear in frame w/o motor or worm gear. Mechanism should turn freely witout binding. Putting engine on track you should be able to push it along and have everything turn under its own weight. If it works ok, your problem is with the motor and gear drive. If it binds, try to identify the problem area and correct. Look for incorectly assembled valve gear, rivets to tight, binding side rod, out of quarter driver.
If gear touble, make sure motor runs ok when not in loco, amp draw is correct, etc. Then experiment with gear mesh. On some of these shimming helps.
Some of this stuff was apparently assembled after someone’s vodka break, so don’t discount that it might be something really weird. Had an IHC 4-4-0 that gave me fits. It would run ok forward, but jerkily in reverse. Turned out that the factory had installed the insulated drivers on the wrong side. The only electric pick up it was getting was thru the lead truck, and how it managed to run at all passes understanding. By the way, the wheels were out of gauge in a major leauge way on this engine too. Gave quite a perfomance going thru turnouts! Runs fine now. So don’t give up, you’ll figure it out eventually.
Good Luck
JBB
It sounds like the drivers are out of quarter - particularly because the problem is worst at slow speeds.
Follow the good suggestions above.
Fawlty Logic? Any relation to Basil Fawlty?[:-^]
Good advice above. One thing to look for in this rather poor valve gear and rods is that a lever flipped 180 deg when you weren’t looking. Either that, or you have assembled it incorrectly with a bad fit someplace…something not aligned, twisted.
Look carefully at each side’s rods and gear, and see if you can detect a difference. Failing that, call a hobby shop and get someone to have a look at it. Chances are you could be back in business in a couple of days.
They’re not the greatest loco out there, but I find that they are quite rugged and dependable.
I feel badly that you had this experience because it will probably make you a bit reluctant to tackle this important function on another steamer. I took my P2K 0-6-0 drivers out of their beds to check something below them one time. Afterwards, I had a very sweaty and tense time of getting the brass axle journal blocks all lined up and in their recesses at the same time. When it finally got done, all I could think about for the next 30 minutes was how keen I was to do it all over again…NOT!!