Nikki & Frank S, loco to tender interconnect..

[dunnyrail]

The first and last wheels are driven. The middle wheel turns only via the drive rod itself and doesn't seem to have any drag resistance that I can tell.

As far as I know, it hasn't been dropped. I'm almost certain it was new when I bought it (bought direct from a retailer) and it's barely been run while I've had it. The rough running feels like it has always been a feature and it put me off running it too much which is a shame because it's one of my favourite looking locos.

Here are a couple of photos requested along with a video of me (attempting) to quarter the loco:

View attachment 313320View attachment 313321

EDIT: Gave it a quick run outside to test and it seems to be better. However, I noticed that on curves (R3) this is some vertical movement of the loco with the wheels rising a couple of mm off the rail. I noticed there is very little horizontal movement in the middle wheels compared to some of my other locos with 3 axels (Spreewald). Is this expected in this model (and it explains why it struggled so much with the parallel crossover with x2 R1s? Only seems to happen on curves (can't see it noticeably on the straight).

I'm wondering if I've been seeing both a quartering problem and this acting together?

It looked to me like you had it nailed around 4.00 in the vid, then you thought 1 more and it went off again. You did very well not to cuss when dropping the screwdriver and later the baseplate. The air would have been blue in my workshop! Looked good to me again around 6.51.

Then in the final vid that lifting is clearly (well to me) an issue of the displaced wheel on the rear driver causing a gauging issue thus lifting a wheel. I think that may be a tricky one to fix but sorting the wheel and gentle bend on the axle to get square to the axle may be a fix. You should use a vernier to work out which part of the wheel is out if tou can. A small square may be able to tell you the squared wheel unless you already know it.

 

[PhilP]

You mentioned you thought the loco was 'new'.
Check back-to-back on all three axles.
Check seating of traction tyre.
Check wheels are square to axles.

It may also benefit from 'running-in'?

PhilP

 

[curtis]

You did very well not to cuss when dropping the screwdriver and later the baseplate.

Honestly - I was about to and recalled I was on camera

I did a little more investigating this evening after work - combined with PhilP 's comment. The traction tyre is fine and I'm pending taking off the rodding again to check the wheels and axles are square.

However, I did check the back-to-back on the wheels. From the inside they're 41mm, 42mm, 41mm respectively (front to back) which seems tight (I always assumed it was 40mm-41mm. I also notice there is extremely little horizontal movement in the front and middle wheel set compared to the back and compared to other x-6-x's I have. I decided to stress this on a piece of R1 curve and you can see the lift (this doesn't happen on a straight - to Greg's earlier question). When tilting the loco to the side (so only one side of wheels are on the track) and then tilting it back to the rail, the flange on the middle wheel doesn't make its way back into the rail.

If it is - I don't see a way to fix that as it looks like the wheels are firmly onto the axel - the outside of the wheel seems flush.

 

[curtis]

A small update on this. While I was at Llangollen, I spoke to Peter about sending the loco over to him for repair. We had a bit of a chat and walked him the team troubleshooting we'd been doing here. He said the most likely cause was the gauging on the wheels - should be close to 40mm. He was happy for me to post it over but said if I was comfortable to essential give the wheels a whack (when they're out the loco and without the flywheel.

I considered it and decided to give it a go this afternoon. After removing the axels I found a nice little setup. I have an arm that holds a light/camera on the deck so I removed that and it made a nice guide. I then used an adjustable screw driver without anything in on the other side of the axel. Image below. Started with some gentle tapping to build up confidence and got comfortable to give it a bit of a whack. Decided to do this to all 3 of the axels given they were all 41-42mm.

Reassembled with little trouble (and got quartering right first time which shocked me).

Gave it a run around the layout with no wobbling on the curves and through the R1 Crossover without issue.

Wanted to wrap up the thread here, say a thank you and share the learnings for anyone else that comes across this.

Also, I found someone else on YouTube that seemed to be having the same trouble

 

[JimmyB]

A small update on this. While I was at Llangollen, I spoke to Peter about sending the loco over to him for repair. We had a bit of a chat and walked him the team troubleshooting we'd been doing here. He said the most likely cause was the gauging on the wheels - should be close to 40mm. He was happy for me to post it over but said if I was comfortable to essential give the wheels a whack (when they're out the loco and without the flywheel.

I considered it and decided to give it a go this afternoon. After removing the axels I found a nice little setup. I have an arm that holds a light/camera on the deck so I removed that and it made a nice guide. I then used an adjustable screw driver without anything in on the other side of the axel. Image below. Started with some gentle tapping to build up confidence and got comfortable to give it a bit of a whack. Decided to do this to all 3 of the axels given they were all 41-42mm.

Reassembled with little trouble (and got quartering right first time which shocked me).

Gave it a run around the layout with no wobbling on the curves and through the R1 Crossover without issue.

Wanted to wrap up the thread here, say a thank you and share the learnings for anyone else that comes across this.
View attachment 313675
Also, I found someone else on YouTube that seemed to be having the same trouble

I find a socket of a suitable size, a good drift for moving items on bars, axels etc.