| If I was a betting man, I'd put my money on oxidized tender bolsters. ?Every Mantua 4-4-2 I've worked over had this problem. ?For some reason the lot of pot metal used for the tender floors picks up the usual Mantua carbonized black junk very quickly. ?The first one I worked on about drove me nuts till I figured it out. ?When clean, they'll run like a dream, then gradually get worse and final run in stops and starts, just like you're experiencing. ?Could be something else of course, but that's what I'd check first. ?Try polishing them and the tender truck bolsters up. ?Mantua put a copper washer on some of them to try to help with this problem, but it doesn't do much good. ?A tiny amount of contact cleaner will keep them working properly for a longer period of time, but eventually you'll be back to cleaning the same area. ? ??The real long term
fix as already has been mentioned is to equip the tender trucks with wipers and hard wire them to the tender frame. ?I think the easiest way to do this would be to solder spring bronze wire to the tender trucks. ?Have done that this year on a whole bunch of General trucks with very good results.. If you need some spring wire, contact me off list...it doesn't take much ??I'd also check to make sure all the wheels of all your tender trucks are in contact with the rail. ?This loco has some issues with that, esp. depending on what Mantua truck was used. ?The one that should be there and seems to work best is the "Reading" style truck, but various trucks were substituted depending on what was on hand during assembly, and who did what after the engine was sold. ??All the 4-4-2 s I've worked on had a nice can motor and gear box. ?Don't know if they were all that way, but those ran very nicely once contact problems were resolved,
and should convert to DCC easily. ?Hardest part of the DCC conversion will be wiring up those nifty operating marker lampas. ?Haven't done one yet, but think you'll need to add a resistor to drop track voltage down on them. ??Finally, thanks for the kind words, Vic! ?Here I thought I was sneaking quietly onto Ebay...you just can't get nothing past some people (lol). ??My latest project has been working over a group of 6 Rivarossi 4-4-0' s for a gentleman, as well as 3 J. W Bokers. ?He's decided that he really likes not having to hassle with dogbones, so they are all getting two piece brass tubing drive shafts and can motors. ?Think at this point I could write a small book on pick problems on these engines, and how to solve them...basicaly the problems, no matter what they act like come down to poor driver pickup. ?I'm find both the wipers and the little spring plungers just don't act like they are supposed to, and am just
modifying them as a matter of course...the improvement in performance is simply amazing. Continuing on my present HO layout, but have just bough a lot of really old O gauge Truscale tack from the New Orleans area. ?This stuff came out of a club down there and is old enough that there is a high probability that Frank Ellision among others ran stuff on it. ?Got in mind a small O scale loop arounf the workshop to test and play with as well as some On30 trackwork, that will also double as ?an HO repair test loop, so I don't have to keep running from the bench to the layout to test stuff.
??Finally got a pair of beautiful Tenoshodo GN articulated locomotives from a friend to clean up and sell. ?They all have rotten foam, but I won't know how bad till I get into them. ?If any of you are looking for one of these, drop me a line...maybe we can work a deal that leaves everybody
happy. ??Apart from that we ain't been blown or washed away yet down here in the Ozarks, but it's been a close thing a time or two. ?Any of you guys going to be at Atlanta next month...maybe I'll run into you. JBB ?? |
