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Dec 28, 2009, 1:42pm

Cheshire Railway Modellers :: Open Access :: Main Line :: Farish: Cracked Gears

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cheshire001
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Farish: Cracked Gears
« Thread Started on Nov 5, 2009, 11:02pm »

Various bits of this story may be of interest:

Returned home from a recent show with a bargain Farish class 101. Probably not as good as the latest offering, but less than half the price

It ran OK but there was a distinct "clunk, clunk" and it sometimes stopped dead. I was recently in a local model shop where the owner was working on a OO loco which did the same. The cause was attributed to a cracked gear. Sure enough, the magnifying glass revealed the glint of the brass axle through a crack in one of the gears within the bogie. [Train of 5 plastic gears in each bogie on the powered unit].

I had a non-runner of a Farish GWR railcar which donated a replacement gear. Put it back on the test track and...."clunk, clunk". Turned out more of the gears were cracked :'(

Transplanted others from the railcar, but had to leave one axle on the DMU unpowered. DMU worked well.

Good. Carried on with various cosmetic improvements:
Couple of the windows had no glazing, so fitted clear plastic.
Removed couplings at cab ends and fitted brake pipes.
Removed original buffers from power car and sustituted home-made ones with larger heads.
Painted desination blind black - the lining had been carried over it(!)
Painted corridor connections which had been left in body colour.
Holes in cab front filled with micro-rod, cut off just proud of surface and painted white to look like marker lights rather than, er, holes(!)

Subsequent search of the internet revealed the following on the subject:
http://www.ngaugesociety.com/modelling/hints/splitgears.htm

I contacted the supplier named (B.R. Lines) who were able to supply packs of replacement 12-tooth gears and also a chassis for a prairie tank which had long since been declred a non-runner.
How's this for service? Emailled then at 16:00 on Sunday and had a reply less than 2 hours later. Posted cheque on Monday and goods received Wednesday.

Fitted new gear on DMU only to find the gear train locked from time to time. AAAARGH!! Then found one of the larger gears in the train had fractured. Pity it didn't break 2 days before when I was ordering spares! So borrowed an axle and gear from the railcar. The DMU now runs nicely with all wheels powered.

If anybody is doing similar work on either of these (Poole-made) models, drop me a line and I'll give you a run-through on how to dismantle it. For goodness sake go easy when you remove the sideframes as there's a spring behind that coupling.... and four copper contact fall off when you remove the driving wheels.

One thing, there should be plenty of motive power to run on Handby

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cheshire001
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Re: Farish: Cracked Gears
« Reply #1 on Nov 8, 2009, 12:26pm »

A sad sequel:

Having sent the above message, I logged off and and decided to replace a pair of contacts I had deliberately left off for speed. Popped the wheelset out, clipped the contacts in and replaced the wheelset. Quick test run and off to bed? No! Back came the clunking. Another cracked gear on a wheelset! On examining the "spares" under the railcar, ALL of them were cracked. In fact so were another two from further along the drive train. No wonder the poor railcar would hardly move! So, plenty of cracked gears all over my desk, but no working units at the moment :-(

The story continues...

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cheshire001
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Re: Farish: Cracked Gears
« Reply #2 on Nov 10, 2009, 9:29pm »

Episode III:

Removed a wheel from the axle - I used a steel pin and hammer to tap the axle out of the wheel. Slid off the cracked gear and applied a small amount of superglue next to the crack, keeping clear of the teeth. Allow to set and replace gear on axle. Replace wheel - I lined up the axle and wheel between the jaws of a small vice. One went on out of true but the others were ok.

Refit to loco, after clearing the odd fragment of dried glue out of the teeth I found it all worked. Put it all back together and hope nothing else goes wrong!

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