Ok, over 20 years ago I bought a Con Cor 2-8-8-2, took off the tender shell and installed a shortened Bachmann 4-8-4 ATSF tender shell to make it an oil burner...ran it a few times (not even an hour) and a power lead to the motor fell off....so I promptly put it back in the box and all but forgot about it until a month ago. I decided to put a Bachmann 2-8-0 cab on it and make it look more west coast, repair the lead, repaint it and lube it up. Today, I dug it out, and noticed that the rear set of pistons were falling off, split in two...and the driver sets were not turning....being the tinkerer that I am, I quickly had it all apart and I realized that the factory lube was hard as a rock....no problem, just a clean-up job. When I reassembled the rear driver set, I noticed that the gears were not lining up without the grease....and there was an arch...placed it on the rails and only four wheels of each driver set was touching the rails....the frames for the drivers are now ruined....so, I either suck it up and find a decent used 2-8-8-2 or I convince the CFO that I really need a new AC12 with sound......anyone want this pile-o-parts for free?
hello bremner........ Is the frame wraped ? If so this might be the zinc pest ? I am sorry that this happen to you. Tiffany NW-2
Absent that issue, is the loco a nice enough piece in general (when they're right) to justify some surgery (maybe make some parts) to put it back together? And if so and you're seriously thinking of letting it go for free as scrap, I may be interested. At least give it a first hand look.
Sounds like you should put it on a length of track in a park area and have it as a tourist attraction
Yep. Its a curse alright Bremner. However, there is a solution you can try. When I got my first engines that were Rivarrossi pacifics and mikes, they had the warp factor too. So what I did was totally disassemble everything down to the frame. Next, I determined just how bad the warp was. If its not to bad, you can set it on a long wide flat metal file and with light pressure and a steady even hand you can get rid of the warp on the bottom. Sliding the frame back and forth over the file. (Don't use a bench sander or power tools, those are to fast and will undermine your effort. ) This way the bottom cover will fit square, and when it does, you are down to where the frame bottom needs to be. ( You may need to straighten the cover to be flat) Next, you can use a jewelers file in the axle slots of the first two and last two axle slots to bring the axles back to level. You can determine that by measuring, or setting the drivers in and then setting it on the track. Remember this engines need play in the drivers and gears. You may have to do a little work to the pilot frame. Filing it down the bottom will help too. Once this is done clean her up and lube it well. It will need some tweaks maybe and a little break in. I cut my teeth on n-scale steam this way and I am very thankful for it. So far, my locos have not warped again, and they are still good runners. I will warn you though, if there is any cracking, or crumbling of the metal, its a dead project. It will literally fall apart in your hands if you work with the metal. (hindsight speaking) Good luck and PM if you have any questions..
Thre arch is bad, the rear driver spins freely...and only the front and rear drivers of each set sits on rails...plus with the swelling, there is little room for thr driver sets to rotate
I went so far as to machine a new front power truck out of brass on one of those years ago to replace the Zamak frame that had totally crumbled. I bought the basket case loco for parts but decided to rebuild it. Ran so well that a friend of mine bullied me into selling it to him.
Hi Tiffany, being new can you explain what the zinc pest is? Sounds like I don't want to run into it. thx
The Zamak I mentioned is a zinc alloy that is prone to degrade over time. Depending on if some impurities got into the batch that was used in a particular run of castings, they could warp and eventually crumble. Some batches were OK and had no problems. I don't think anyone uses it any more so you find the problems with older locomotives. If a locomotive frame has not started going bad by now they are likely to remain OK for the future. However, I have a relatively new Microtrains box car where the floor swelled up and warped. Even they must have got a bad batch of alloy once.
Also known as "Zamac Rot". It is an alloy which is very easy to contaminate during the manufacturing process.
I just bought a circa 1980's Con-cor KATY loco sight unseen. It has not arrived as yet, but I assume it may have a zamac frame also right?
It depends on the loco. I have an old Lima Loco that had a strange bulge. I was able to file it down and make it work. I am sure over time it will bulge some more, and then I will file it down some more. Lots of model train brands used this material, so it's not just a Rivarossi problem.
KATY Wabsash Frisco Texas Special CON-COR #8406 Limited Set N Scale NOS It's for my wife she loves M-K-T. I hope this runs It was advertised as never used!
Take a careful look at the engines. Might need old lubrication cleaned out and a very light new application.
Thanks. I believe there is only one engine, the second unit is passive. CON-COR says it is alomost impossible to make it DCC ready so I am thinking I may be able to use the shell on another loco? May need mods but I am assuming if I can get the like loco model it should work. What do you think?
