Baguley Drewery seizing up

WKDOR

WKDOR

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Our reliable old friend is seizing up! Always a popular loco so quite well-used, but not abused AFAIK.

Had started to sound a bit strained and is now running only in spurts. Reverse is much worse, verging on the bunny-hops.

Battery-powered (yes, they're charged 12v) so no this not track-power related with no ESC, just FWD-OFF-REV switch.

Any ideas please - before I take the cover off to have a look inside?

Mike
 
Does this have a sealed gearbox,
or can it have had wind blown sand or debris blown into the drive gears.

Never had one of these in my hands, so wouldnt know

I am always wary of open gears out in the open
 
Granitechops said:
Does this have a sealed gearbox,
or can it have had wind blown sand or debris blown into the drive gears.

Never had one of these in my hands, so wouldnt know

I am always wary of open gears out in the open
Click to expand...

Assuming that this is one of the Accucraft models, yes Don they do have open gear arrangements. Not only that, but the original gears are notoriously noisey and have a reputation for not exactly being of a very high standard.

I'm afraid that your problem sounds gear related to me Mike. These are very simple models, so there's very little else to go wrong. But "sounding a bit strained" and given these model's reputation, I'd be fairly confident that the gears are shot.

Having said that, I'm sure that replacements/alternatives will be available from the likes of Brandbright etc.
 
It's a while since I've worked on these but two things come to mind.
If memory serves me correctly the idler gear shaft has nothing preventing sideways movement as the bearing holes go right through the gearbox sides. This means that they can move out of mesh. The fix is to glue squares of plasticard or similar on the outside of the gearbox over the bearing holes. Also the motor retaining plate is weak at the position marked X on the sketch below. This is directly over the motor worm at one end and consequently the motor can move up and out of mesh. The other end is O.K. because the top plate fixings are much closer. I fixed Casey Jones senior's example by wrapping a couple of cable ties round the whole unit. As it's an outside framed model the cable ties can't be seen. The sketch shows a more elegant solution, gluing triangular fillets of plasticard, shown in green, to strengthen the plate.

05b522337a064872bd1bac91519a57a0.jpg
 
Someone who advertises in the 16mm Assoc Mag makes a complete replacement chassis. Might be Friog, but not sure.
 
funandtrains said:
Sometimes one of the outside cranks gets twisted out of alignment which causes the axels to bind.
Click to expand...

I was going to suggest cranks. The bunny-hopping sounds very much like a problem I had with my Zillertal 062 when the quartering went awry. Not familiar with the Baguley but could the cranks have got out of synch somehow?

Rik
 
Many thanks for all these very helpful ideas. Brilliant as ever.

Has anybody installed the Friog replacement?

Will investigate, research and report back,

Mike
 
Promised update:

Crank alignment looks OK.

Now that I have the underside cover off the gearbox I can see a lot of slop/lateral movement on the rear axle, upper in pix below, gear-train:

4121c1b21d0345a3b32835a485944818.jpg
0da513ca1fba410487851dd1ff6056f4.jpg


Pix not very successful, but I'd guess the larger gear wheel is moving about 15% out of true, where there is no lateral movement on the lower/front drive.

Neil, before going any further, do you think that this is consistent with your first diagnosis please? Or could it still be a material failure where I am not likely to get any replacement parts?

Many Thanks

Mike
 
WKDOR said:
Neil, before going any further, do you think that this is consistent with your first diagnosis please? Or could it still be a material failure where I am not likely to get any replacement parts?
Click to expand...

Difficult to see in the picture, but it seems that the gears may be moving at least partially out of mesh. If the teeth aren't obviously worn I'd minimise the slop as much as possible by any convenient means and then see how the loco runs.

Edit, Take a look at the top cover of the gearbox as well. Ensure that it is keeping both motor worms in full mesh with the gears.
 
The slop in the axle might be causing the gear on the axle to rub on the side of the gear that meshes with the worm. It will tend to cause more problems in one direction of travel compared to the other. I had this problem on a LGB loco once. Adding a thin washer on the axle solved the problem by keeping the gears apart.
 
Well I am delighted to report another Big Win for GSC.

On closer examination, but without the need for complete dissembly I found that Neil was exactly right:

[blockquote]
If memory serves me correctly the idler gear shaft has nothing preventing sideways movement as the bearing holes go right through the gearbox sides. This means that they can move out of mesh. The fix is to glue squares of plasticard or similar on the outside of the gearbox over the bearing holes.[/blockquote]
I had a similar diagnosis from Mike Ousby by email:

Have you checked the meshing of the gears and made sure that they haven't jumped out of mesh?

The shaft had indeed bored its way out of the gearbox by about 5mm! So that's how much room there was for sideways slop.

I could just push the axle back in and reinforced it with a styrene strip as suggested by Neil. Even remembered to avoid glueing up the axle in the process.

One very happy member here,

Many Many Thanks to Neil and Mike.
 
WKDOR said:
Has anybody installed the Friog replacement?
Click to expand...
I've replied to Mike by PM but yes, I've had a Friog chassis fiited to my Accucraft Baguley/Drewry and I'm very pleased with the result. It's now a much more powerful loco and should never wear out!
 
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