Well, a few months ago my Minitrix 2-10-0, which I’d kitbashed into a PRR I1sa “hippo” took a tumble off the layout and I broke the valve gear. Well, I’ve aquired not just a new crank, but a whole new chassis, which is complaltly stripped, save for the gears.
But then I was looking at a photo of the engine and noticed a bigger probem.
As you can see, most of the wheels arent touching the rails. The culprit here seems to be a bent frame. My question is, can the bent frame be fixed? Or should I take the guts out of theis engine and place it on the new chassis?
Depends what the frame is made off. Brass, no problem, you can bend brass without breaking it. Zamac or white metal casting, not so good, the stuff is very likely to crack when you try to bend it straight. Plastic, is possible. Heat it, and clamp it straight, it may come out straight when it cools and you remove the clamps.
I’d swap everything to the new chassis, it seems like it’d be more trouble than it’s worth to rebend it. But later down the road you could attempt to rebend it so that way you have a spare frame on hand.
The gears on the drivers and the idler gears could be misaligned. I had this problem with a concor hudson after some work. The drivers were lifting off the track and it required a lot of careful work to repair. Take a closer look at the engine.
