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January 26, 2008

Bachmann re-motoring kit

I have had one of Nigel Lawton's Bachmann re-motoring kits for a long time now and one of my engines packed up recently so i set about my first bit of modelling for the first time in a few months. Why does everybody say that the winter is the time for lost of modelling? I never have any time!

Nigel's instructions are very straight forward though the soldering can get a little fiddley (for me anyway!) and in no time at all I had a replacement motor unit ready. then the problems started and to give Nigel his due he did say that removing the worm from the old motor is a potentially worrying aspect. I broke two jewellers screwdrivers getting the worm off. I do realise they were cheap ones and I now have an excuse to get some decent ones, and my thumb will heal eventually. The good thing is that I now have an old shaft which I can use as a drift the next time!

I used the full length of shaft tube provided but as I did not have any thread lock I used super glue which worked fine to start with but after a few problems with clearance in the loco body caused the motor shaft to separate from the worm shaft. I need to go find some thread lock as I can see this happening at the start of an exhibition! on this particular loco the worm is already badly chewed so I might start looking for a replacement chassis anyway as the gears on this one are a bit crunchy. If I do through this chassis away I can reuse the re-motoring kit in another one later!

October 2, 2006

Ruston Hornsby painted photo

ruston hornsby painted up
So there it is with the driver and curtain in the doorway you cannot see that the cab is completley full of motor! The eagle eyed will notice that I have removed the provided coupling and replaced it with a Greenwich coupling at the correct height. Apparently these kits were designed long before the Greenwich society decided on a standard coupling height.