I’m still searching for the cause of my BLI J4 2-8-2’s binding problem. Mind you, I’m not 100% sure thats what it is. It could be something else altogether. One thing for sure, I’m learning a lot about the way they work. As I said in another thread, the engine has a little jerky motion to it that happens very fast and is most noticible when you have a couple or three cars behind it. The end most car does a peculiar quick back and forth motion, and this is most evident in reverse. I talked to one of the tech guys at BLI this morning and he told me to make sure it was oiled properly and in the right places…
I did.
He said to check the grease in the gear box or tower.
I did and it was fine.
He said to check for bent side rods etc.
I did and don’t see a thing.
And the last thing it may be, he said… was one of the drive wheels was out of quarter. I kinda knew what that was but I searched around and found a good explanation with photos.
I’m attaching here pictures of MY locomotive for you more experienced people to see. I don’t see that they’re out of sync, they look fine to me… but I’m not that experienced with it.
What do you think? OH!.. I checked the shaft coming out of the motor and the flywheel and there was no play or wobble that I could see.
Just call me Baffled.
No wonder the real railroads couldn’t wait to get diesels… [;)]
Jarrell
Assuming the engine wasn’t run between pics, there’s definitely a quartering problem but I don"t know if that’s the cause of you’re problem. In a properly quartered steam engine the crank pins on the left side of the engine should be 90 degrees different from the crank pins on the right. Your engine looks like they’re more like 15 or 20 degrees. That, by itself isn’t a problem, since you can’t see both sides at the same time. A quartering problem that would cause the jerkiness you describe would be caused if one of the driver crank pins on one side was at a slightly diferent angle than the others. I can’t tell if that’s the case from the pics.
Eye balling the “quartering” of drivers is very tough to do. What you would be looking for is a binding of the side rods at the crank pin of the driver as the locomotive turns its’ wheels very slowly. Out of quartering will cause the side rod to bind gfront to rear against its crank pin, this should happen at the bottom and at the top of each revolution. If this is the problem I would recommend that BLI look at it and possibly replace the main drivers. Best of luck with this annoyance.
Will
Jarrell, a couple of things. These are not real locos, so the drive on one side does not ‘have to be’ quartered from the other. It ‘should be’ for proper prototypical running so that the loco doesn’t rip up the track like it would if the rods were 180 deg apart. So, as Jim says, there is no apparent quartering problem that is discernable in your (always excellent) pix. Quartering of the type where one driver is clearly out of rotation synch with the others. For example, if the second driver on the right were rotated on its shaft/axle by four deg in either direction, it would want to move the side rod pivot differently than the other drivers. Right? If the others were all bottom dead centre, and it was 4 deg off, then the rod would be stressed at that driver’s pivot and it would seize, or at least jerk like the dickens. This is not your problem.
The other thing is that my BLI 4-6-4 does the same thing as yours does when I back it slowly from the main onto a siding and up to the station house. At first, the movement is slow and smooth, but then a couple or three waves of the caboose moving in fits and starts commences. It only lasts a few seconds and settles down. I attribute this to a real coupler crash/movement phenomenon! There really is slack in them thar couplers. I have learned to accept this because every other aspect of that loco’s behaviour is excellent.
You may not be able to live with that, but it doesn’t bother me. Did you say you are already on a second loco, and the same problem is cropping up?
Something else to check that hasn’t been mentioned by BLI tech support is, watch the side rods very carefully as the locomotive creeps at its slowest possible speed, and check for a bent rod snagging on the head of one of the bolts that hold the rods to the wheels. Sometimes one of the side rods or valve mechanism rods gets bent inward and rubs or even binds on the bolt heads as the wheels go around.
If you can rig up a way to run the engine while its laying on its side this might be easier to diagnose.
Your wheels are most definitely not properly quartered, but all of them seem to be the same degree out of tolerance, so that should not be the cause of the binding problem you’re experiencing. It it were a real locomotive, it wouldn’t even run with the wheels as far out of tolerance as this model.
If all else fails, take it back to where you purchased it and get a new one or send it to BLI for repair.
Good luck.
Since you don’t have a “quaterer” from NWSL, you’d be better off to send it back to BLI. It’s very hard to see a driver out of quarter. If you want to play with it, disconnect one set of drivers at a time and see when the bind disappears. That’ll tell you which one is the bad one.
I appreciate your input(s). I really don’t feel comfortable taking it apart anymore than I have.
Yes, this is the second engine to behave the same. I don’t know what else to do, I’m stumped It does it very little in forward, going a slow speed, but really does it in reverse at slow speed. Bugs the devel out of me… [banghead] I hate it when I can’t find the cause of something!
[sigh] The shop where I bought it has a guy that is very good with these things but he’ll be out of town until Sat or Sun… sooooo… hmmmm. I think I’ll ask the shop manager if he can get me another one and exchange it. I like the little engine but it really oughta run better than this.
One other thing the BLI tech told me to do was to run it like the devil in forward then reverse for a while.
I did. No better.
Thanks guys!
Jarrell
50 hours of “break in”? That may be what the tech was refering to. I think for the price that BLI is asking, you should get an engine you are satisfied with. My 2 cents!
Will
Will, I’m inclined to agree with you. I know that they’re just machines and you’re gonna get a bad one now and then, but the customer pays for one that works and works properly, not one they have to keep ‘adjusting’ (for lack of a better word) in order for it to run as advertised.
Jarrell
Jarrell,
If you wanted to know for sure, you could pop off the top of the gear tower and remove the worm gear (if you can) or the idler gear beneath it. This would effectively disconnect the motor from the wheels. Then, gently pu***he engine on a glass surface with your fingers. If the wheels are adequately “quartered”, the wheels will turn freely, even on the glass. If they bind, they will stop. If they turn freely, there is another problem somewhere (the worm gear on the end of the flywheel???).
You are entitled to a properly running engine, if one exists. Sounds like it may not, since others have a similar problem. Good luck.
Mark C.
Considering the volume of BLI questions/disapointments here & elsewhere their steam is not worthly of my money. Out of the box for those kind of bucks I demand performance. I already went through all sorts of crap
with the prior Rivarossi models distributed by modelexpo .
I think I see your problem. If you look closely at the top picture, all the counter weights are posoitioned about 3 degrees towards the fire box end of the loco exept the #3 driver. The counter weight of this one is at top dead center. I would like to mildly disagree with jimrice about the quartering on model locos. Properly quartered drivers does make a difference on most model steam locos as most locos have only one axle driven by the motor and the rest are powered through the side rods, just as the full scale locos. Even more so if articulated side rods are used. Best solution to me is to let the manufacturer correct this problem or have your hobby shop replace it. If the later, test run the replacement at the shop before leaving with it. Thanks, Ken
My father-in-law has a BLI M1a. Out of the box, the thing is GREAT! Even with the sound muted it’s great - also consider that he got it from Standard for $130! You’d pay that for a larger IHC loco and they don’t run nearly as well. Then add the excellent sound on top of that… The only BLI I’ve seen that I didn’t care for was the SD40 demonstrated at the LHS. But since I don’t model modern… the little switcher is AWESOME.
Now that they (well, PCM, same thing) are coming out with a loco that fits my needs, I will finally have one of my own (Reading T-1).
–Randy
I think Eriediamond has a good point in re the quartering. My eyes are not good enough to see the possible misalignment, and that may be due to rod clearance on the one powered driver versus the unpowered ones, but at least clost to prototypical 90 degree quartering would seem to me to be important if any drivers other than the powered one are to carry any load at all. None of my locos from anyone have this small a quarter angle.
Jarrell,
There is a rule that I try to adhere to when buying steam locos. Try it before you buy it. I will sometimes pay extra for a loco to buy it at an LHS just so I can see it run. Be picky about wobbles, hitches and hunting (the nose moves side to side as the loco waddles down the track). Sometimes models right out of the box will have these problems and the next one you try will run like glass. I do buy lots of stuff online and mailorder. Most of the time these sellers will take back a steamer that has these problems (check this out before you buy).
As for BLI, I have two of their cab-forwards and many of my friends own other BLI locos. I think we have sent two back for running problems out of maybe two dozen locos total. My Cab forwards run very smoothly. I have also sent back spectrum locos with hunting problems.
When buying on ebay, I try to buy NIB (new in the box) locos to avoid having someone re-selling a loco with a slight hitch just to get rid of a problem runner. I have bought locos from stores selling on ebay and have been able to return poor runners…
Then there is the issue of perception. I think that there are guys out there who won’t be sarisfied with any loco no matter how well it runs. Most factory made models do have some sort of slight glitches, even when they run like glass. I’m not talking major re-occuring stuff, maybe a little catch once in a while, an occasional sticky start etc…Running in these locos can help. The problem for product support is figuring out when there is a problem and when it is the customer putting unrealistic expectations on the product. This is why you get all of the suggestions from the tech etc…He is just trying to figure out the situation.
Now I know there are some guys who are going to say for $200.00 my loco should run perfect, Well how is your track work? are the wheels clean??, how good are the electrical feeds?? etc…
When handling steam, watch out whe
Jarrell, sounds exactly like mine was!! Are you sure there is no movement in the motor shaft? I’m talking forwards/reverse movement, in and out of the motor. What this does is move the worm gear across the idler gear and turn the idler as well as the spinning action. It’s worse in reverse the idler gear is forceing the worm one way the motor is pushing it back = Jerking.
Ken.
if you did not run that engine between shots, they are out of quarter.
But if the wheels are all geared together , that wont be a problem.
but, they should be 90 degrees off to be prototypically correct.
I would go ahead and give it a run in period.
However it is wrong.
One set of drivers down, the other should be straight forward or back.
If the drivers are not geared, it will produce a hitching.
take it back if this is so.
I now see what the others are seeing in that set of drivers. No, 3 is about 7 deg out of synch with the others. That could very well be the problem. Good catch, Erie.
If you take a straight edge (edge of a piece of paper) and slide it parallel to the counterweights on both pictures, the main driver (#3 axle) is ahead of the other axles by about the same amount in both pictures. The #2 axle is slightly ahead of the #1 axle. I can’t tell clearly about the last axle. This may be due to the normal slack in the model’s drive axles. Clearly, the wheels on each axle are not properly quartered. They may not be “quartered” differently on each axle, which would cause binding. I find it interesting that the crankpins on the opposite sides are off by the same amount on all axles, not 90 degrees but something about 45 degrees. How could the factory get it so wrong?
It may not be the cranks and the main drivers that is binding. Try rolling it on glass with the motor temporarily disconnected from the drive line. That will help define where the problem is.
Mark C.
Fellas, I didn’t find the problem. I knew that I was so new at all this that I might never find it. Sooooo… I solved it by exchanging for a BLI Class A NW 2-6-6-4. It is quite a locomotive. But, to answer an earlier question… no, for the 2 photos the locomotive was just picked straight up and turned around, not run.
I appreciate all the replies. I’ve learned a lot from this experience.
Thanks,
Jarrell