Hey Everyone
I got a ho steam issue. I took apart a steamer to install a decoder, now the the gears are biding, it goes forward a touch then stops. Its a bachman steamer, any suggestions? I tried lubricated it already!!
Thanks
CASO
If you allowed the drivers with their valve gear and rods to come out of their journals, or if you handled the rods and bent them while taking a hold of the locomotive, you may have a quartering problem, bent rods, binding rods, or flipped valve gear. Did one of the valve stems come out of its orifice enough to jam on the edge of it? One of the wires foward to the headlight, or one of the pickup wires has not gotten jammed in the works?
Otherwise, there is no reason that I can think of for the binding if you simply lifted the boiler off the frame and motor. If you did not also remove the motor and final drive, the gear meshing should be unchanged.
If this is an older standard Bachmann with the split frame that must be totally disassembled to install the decoder, you probably don’t have the drive wheels back in the order they are required to be, and the quartering is off. If you iinadvertently turned one of the axles 180 degrees during disassembly / reassembly, the side rods are binding.
Don’t know if this helps, but 90% of the times if a steamer didn’t run for me it was because the side rods were binding. You need to turn the wheels ever so slightly, and I mean slightly, until the wheels aline properly. It has taken me the better part of a day to get it just right sometimes.
You can buy something called a “quarterer” that ‘quarters’ the wheels. But unless you clean, open up etc a lot of steamers I don’t know if it is worth the expense.
It might be.
Anyhow, one other thing to try first though.
Simply take it apart again. And then slowly put it back together taking your time. I have found that sometimes this helps ‘regear’ things. Anyhow, it is worth a try before you start messing with the side rod alinement.
This is not an easy fix although sometimes it is. Just depends. Mostly it is time consuming so if you get impatient just stop and come back later. It is not hard, just time consuming is all.
Ihope that helps. 
fixed Thanks for the help everyone!!
If you don’t mind letting us know, what was the problem with it?
Yes, please.
bent rods