Bachmann GE 44 ton Drivetrain

[cnrglen]

I just got this little item of the 'bay and a pretty good price and it's not the crummy 2 motor version

Unfortunately it had some drivetrain problems that the seller didn't mention. I found that one of the trucks didn't run so I turned it upside down and found:

the center idler gear in each truck was in backwards and not meshing properly

so I disassembled the trucks and re-aligned the gear and I thought I had fixed the problem when the universal coupler on one side of the motor was slipping on the motor shaft.

It looks like both universal cups have splits and will just spin on the shafts. Now before I send Bachmann an order for new universal cups is there a way to fix these?

[ssgburme]

NWSL has universal kits, dont know if they would match up tho.
Karl

[icghogger]

Karl is right, just measure the shaft and check the NWSL site for the correct size universal kit.

[PVRR 2647]

Glen~

I would take the both trucks apart and wash out all of that grease with dawn and a toothbrush and do the same for the universal cups to get the grease off. Then I would wrap the cups with a rubber band and try gluing them with CA before I order new ones. What have you got to lose?

After the truck is washed and dried I would then make my own grease from labelle 107 oil and powdered graphite, applied to the reassembled trucks with a toothpick. I learned this recipe from a guy on youtube years ago and it works great.

PVRR2647

[cnrglen]

Thanks for the replies. I already tried gluing the cups using ACC but that didn't work very well and the NWSL cups are more expensive than the Bachmann replacement parts. I will probably try to clean up the over- lubed gears though.

I ended up buying the parts from Bachmann after all. They don't sell the cups separately, but they do sell them attached to the worm gear(4$) and motor(18$). Fortunately the cup is the same on both the motor and worm gear so I bought two worm gears and I'll just slip the cup off one and onto the motor shaft.

Once I fix the drive I'll be installing a digitrax DZ-143 decoder and then it's off to the paint shop.

[cnrglen]

I got to repairing the engine today. I took each truck apart, washed the grease off with some Palmolive dish soap an re-assembled them.

They went back together easily. Of course I re-gauged the trucks before re-assembly and re-lubed the gears with a small dollop of plastic-compatible grease.

These are the two worm gears I got from Bachmann. I used one to replace the work that had the cracked cup and the removed the other cup to replace the cracked one on the motor. Upon re-assembly everything ran smoothly on my test track. Now it's back to installing a digitrax DZ-143 decoder and getting this project back to where it was three weeks ago.