LGB 2028 mogul

[stevedenver]

Edgar, happy to be of any help. I hope once you get to it, my description isnt cryptic.
You can do it.

be prepared to spend a bit in time and money in finding any needed replacement parts.
If it were me, i would reassemble with the old parts while awaiting the new. That way , you wont forget. Even when i had grey cells, things that seemed obvious at the time become less so after a few days absence.

perhaps the members here can direct you to good sources in the UK. Over here, ebay is becoming usurious..no outrageous in pricing. LGB parts are becoming more scarce, some unobtainable. I am certain this is due to marklin not wishing to support old LGB items.

champex linden may be the place to start once you know what you need.
idlers and tyres should be relatively easy and not too dear. others not so much, which is one reason to be be gentle and careful.
my luck with ordering marklin parts directly, even for recent models i have purchased new, has been abysmal. perhaps its better over there.

good gawd my typing has become awful... apologies.

best of luck

 

[Edgar]

Steve, I’ve looked that the tires and other parts can be had through Only Trains to Tennessee. My wife’s parents are showing up later this evening, so I’ve elected to concentrate on messes other than my trains today. I hope to report back after having utilized your advice. Edgar

 

[Edgar]

Following Steve’s directions, the engine was easily disassembled yesterday. After looking at Greg’s article about lubricants and the images and effects of what can go wrong, I ordered some Piko grease and waited for it to arrive. I didn’t feel confident to accomplish a complete disassembly and cleaning.

 

[Edgar]

I used q-tips and got most of the the crud out. It doesn’t look like there was ever much grease applied and I wasn’t sure how much to use or how exactly to apply it.

 

[Edgar]

The engine seems to be making some racket I don’t recall hearing before. I’ve tried to load a thirty second video of the engine running slowly on a block. I got a message that the file is too large. The rods appear to move smoothly, but there is a perceptible clicking in forward and a grinding sound in reverse.

 

[JimmyB]

The engine seems to be making some racket I don’t recall hearing before. I’ve tried to load a thirty second video of the engine running slowly on a block. I got a message that the file is too large. The rods appear to move smoothly, but there is a perceptible clicking in forward and a grinding sound in reverse.

You need to link vids from a site e.g. YouTube

 

[phils2um]

Most likely got one of the idlers off by a tooth when you reassembled it.

 

[Edgar]

The engine is parked for the time being. I’ve looked at instructions for using YouTube, it appears to be fairly intuitive, so maybe it’s something I can handle. The forecast includes chances of rain all next week, I’ll be back with a report in the next few days. Thank you.

 

[stevedenver]

What phil said.
dont be put off.
sometimes, even after decades of this repair stuff, you have to open it up and adjust, more than once...

part of this, unfortunately, is detective work. Being a numpty myself, sometimes it takes me a long time to figure things out.

all i can suggest is to pay close attention to visual quartering of the drivers, ie all the rod bosses in the exact same position, eg 6 olclock. There should be light play in the rods when finished. Btw, from the photos, the driver gears appear unworn. Is this in fact the case? Ditto the cut out on the side of the motor block in which each axel sits? There should be zero play in these. Only enough for the axel to rotate, nothing more.

as for grease....i use a couple of smears, using a smallish flat head screwdriver, just get 80% of the gear teeth covered. Yours look fine to me.

as for the clicking, run the loco very slowly with a close eye on the rods and gear work for something that binds/touches. if you see nothing, you could entirely remove the rods, one side at a time, to try to eliminate the rods as a cause of clicking. if the rods are off, and the clicking continues, you know its not the rods.

also, i dont know if youve opened the bottom block plate, but i might do this and look carefully. Is there a tiny bit lodged in one of the gears. i have had a tiny single peice of n scale ballast in a gear result in problems.

as for the grind....while a wild guess, .if your powerpack has a pulse setting, check to see that its off..sometimes in reversing, i have unwittingly moved the switch on my bench power pack.

also, the lgb motors must be correctly seated. The motor end, from which the shafts emerge, have small pins for aligning the motor in the block motor cradles. While seemingly simple, i often have to double check this, as well as the bronze tabs on the motor. Make sure the latter havent been bent, and make contact. Be ultra gentle with the tabs, as if they break, THAT is a problem.

when you run, very slowly, look for any change in the rotation speed. A change means binding, somewhere, eg quartering, running gear/rods.

fwiw, i have heard stuff when a loco is upside down that seems to go away once the loco is righted.

just shots in the dark. Best of luck.
be patient, as im certain you can sort this.

there are brighter and more knowledgeable folks here, perhaps theyll have some guidance.

 

[Edgar]

I was hoping to post a YouTube video so others could hear the racket. But it seems recalling a password is one issue and as there’s no cell service down this hollow (the cops have to drive a mile up out of here for their radios to work) googles change password code didn’t come through. Anyway, there’s not going to be a video shown.

 

[Edgar]

The engine has been disassembled several times this morning. Several of the times where to figure out that one of the brass contact tabs and the motor wasn’t making a connection with the power. With that sorted, the quartering has been adjusted/changed three times and seems to run smooth. I’m not hearing the clicking and grinding.

 

[PhilP]

Sounds like a result! - Well done..

Quite often it can take a bit of perseverance to get there..

 

[Edgar]

Except for one striped idler gear, all the other gears looked practically new. The journals that the wheel axils ride in don’t seem to be worn and there’s no perceptible play in the axils with the block assembled. The LGB 5003 transformer has been used for testing and a MRC power G was used otherwise; I don’t think either of those pulse. It baffles me why only the front idler striped. I’m not going to claim the engine has never had eleven cars hooked to it, because I did it a few times and the train looked silly running my short track. My passenger consist includes the tender, three cars, and a caboose. The freight consist is six cars including the tender and caboose. The evening when the gear striped there were other lit cars on side tracks just to draw power. I bought the engine from a couple who had ordered it new and ran it most Christmas’ for thirty years. They had the engine, tender, four cars, and a caboose - a circle of R1 and four feet of straight track to form an oval; that would have been tail chasing on tight curves. My track is about 70’ with R3&5 curves; it’s not perfectly level, but well under 1% where it’s not. Why just the front idle gear; because there’s more weight on the front? Did running it with out the traction tires and the wheels having a different circumstance have something to do with it?

 

[Greg Elmassian]

Yep, that one gear, the part that engages the worm, is stripped... destroyed. It's the one in the background with the half moon gouge in the center.

 

[PhilP]

So the loco probably ran for several hours a day? - Assuming they remembered to turn it off in the evening. Probably for a fortnight. On tight radius track, and probably always in the same direction...

So I would guess it never got cleaned or lubricated?
So the forces just happened to build up at that end of the motor-block..
It may also have jumped a tooth (or been assembled that way)?

PhilP

 

[phils2um]

My guess is that the worm and worm wheel of the idler were not meshed as tightly on the badly worn end. Once the worm jumped a tooth that idler took all the damage. Good job getting it back in service - don't want to strand the passengers too long!

 

[stevedenver]

well done Edgar!

As for why one idler, it would seem that was the axel bearing most of the stress, be it from R1 or load. May well have been that axel had the most adhesion due to missing traction tyres.

In any event, its great to read of your success.


Now, for traction tyres.

btw, im honored to have a union jack below my avatar as i am a anglophile (not to be confused with any other phile, than you very much)(not sure when that flag changed)

but im a yank.
at this point in the State of Things, i am happy to be a citizen of the world.

It appears even old eagle eyed greg is now also a brit. smallish world, innit?.lol

 

[Edgar]

Steve thank you for your help and encouragement. I got tires for the mogul and a package of smaller size tires for my other engines, when I ordered the gear lube. The mogul tires were installed the first time it was opened and the others since then (with plenty of tires to spare.)

Greg, the worm gear did leave a noticeable stripe stripped into the idler.

 

[Greg Elmassian]

That worn gear will allow it to slip a tooth. I would not run it until I got a replacement.