Hello all. I just bought an N scale Bachmann F7 on Ebay. It runs great but sounds like a coffee grinder. I’ve read in other posts to use Pearl drops or toothpaste in the gears to polish them up.Also to make sure all flash is off the gears. How do you get the gears out of the truck to wipe them down and get the flash off? Thanks for your help.
Jack
Unfortuanately, you wont be able to get that little Bachmann to sound or run any better.
David B
Hey there Red i feel your pain here, and hope fully you will get more answers then i did when i posted this ? just recently, if you put either pearl drops or toothpaste in the search feature it brings up a bunch of stuff, although it looks like 99% is about athern blue box locos which are ho i believe, also i can’t seem to find pearl drops any where yet, i am going to try and mix barkeepers freind and oil to make a paste and try it on an old bachmann i have, i am sure i can tear it down and clean it, just not sure about the getting it back together part, will let you know how it comes out, and yeah i have one of those a/b units my self and can hardly stand to run it it is so noisy, the bachmann said and i quoet, “that is as quiet as it will get”, nice huh!.
Coffee grinders and N-scale Bachmann seem to go together like chocolate and peanut butter. [dinner]
I have a couple of older Bachmann units back from the dark ages of N-scale (70’s) and it sounds like things have not changed all that much. But to their credit, they still run. I also have an old Atlas geep from the same era that sounds the same, so it wasn’t always Bachmann back then.
Is this a Bachmann Plus or Spectrum unit you have? I’ve heard that the Bachmann Plus units have fragile gearing that lends to cracks, so if you have this type of unit, I’d suggest you take advantage of their warranty and have it replaced with a Spectrum unit. It might do better.
What vintage is it? If it’s a newer spectrum, you just have to let it run in for a few minutes (about 15) and it’ll settle in. If it’s a Plus, you might have broken nylon gears. If it’s the old trainset crapmaster, get some coffee beans and make an espresso…
Lee
I don’t know about Red but mine are spectrums and they sound just as loud as thier standard line of products, and its just to bad because they make a nice steam loco for the money!, and i had a couple of spirit of 76 u36b’s that i sent in to get checked, they sent me back 2 new power units and they are only slightly quieter!.
Well guys, I took the bull by the horns and put a few drops of toothpaste in the truck gears and ran it around the layout back and forth til they got gummed up good. Then I sprayed the trucks under the kitchen sink sprayer with hot water and dried them with the wife’s hair dryer. After that I sprayed the gears as lightly as possible with WD40, wiped them down as well as possible and put it back together. It ran quieter but is still noisy. Oh, well. Thanks for the feedback and tips.
Jack
IIRC the Pearl Drops was ment to clean out old oil & gunk from the drivetrain. Bachmann use to apply too much grease. Ones dried, it gums up the works good.
I thought WD40 would be murder for plastic loco parts. Use a lube made for model trains. LaBelle makes a good oil.
Old Bachmanns with their metal geaars were well known for the coffe grinder sound. They could have made an ad for Starbucks. The Plus and some Spectrum locos had brittle plastic gears that love to crack & break. Perhaps the new editions have better luck.
Your bet bet to quiet them down some is to find some LLGP20 motors. The conversion goes fairly easy. They were sold in a huge closeout sale by Model Expo a few years ago. Check *bay for UP#474 GP20’s, LL#7250. They may be the GP20’s used in some LL trainsets.