Help! My Kato SD40-2 needs an organ donor...

dbrent Dec 11, 2011

  1. dbrent

    dbrent TrainBoard Member

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    Hi Everyone,
    The other night, I was testing my Kato SD40-2 (Mid Production) using a JMRI throttle on my laptop and accidently fat fingered the stop command. It flew off the end of my test track which is mounted to a wall about 5' up in the air and hit a bookshelf and a toolbox on the way down. The result wasn't catastrophic however as no parts actually broke but it did disassemble itself pretty thoroughly.

    Anyway I was able to recover all the parts except 1... The tiny little brass bearing that goes on the driveshaft to support the wormgear for one of the truck assemblies. It's basically a 1/16 dia brass disc (maybe 1/32 thick) with a little hole in the center.

    Kato does not sell this part so I was hopeing maybe someone out there has a junker or access to older parts or knows of a substitute that might work. I would hate to have to scrap the whole locomotive over such a tiny little part.

    Thanks,
    Don
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 11, 2011
  2. Bob Horn

    Bob Horn TrainBoard Member

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    929362 is 2 worms with nylon bushings. $4.00 in stock at Kato. Bob.
     
  3. John Moore

    John Moore TrainBoard Supporter

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    All right its time to break out the vacumn. Hopefully a bagless type. Empty the canister and then vacumn the whole area. Empty the contents on a sheet of white paper and get the tweezers and set down and sort. A little hand held vac and a magnet have found any number of parts that I've had take flight.
     
  4. dbrent

    dbrent TrainBoard Member

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    Funny you should mention this. We have a dust buster and I basically did exactly what you describe. Even got out the magnifiers and flash light and did a search pattern on my carpet. All to no avail I'm afraid.
     
  5. dbrent

    dbrent TrainBoard Member

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    Thanks, I'll check this option out.
     
  6. dbrent

    dbrent TrainBoard Member

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    Found it!

    I just got very lucky!

    I was working on fixing a broken coupler on another Kato locomotive when one half of it "flicked" out of the tweezers and went flying onto the carpet below. While I was searching for the coupler piece, I found the little brass bushing. I never would have guessed it would be in the area it was so it was just dumb luck that I found it. Found the coupler half also so it's been a good night for re-claiming things from the carpet.

    Thanks to all who replied!
    Don
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Dec 12, 2011
  7. Bob Horn

    Bob Horn TrainBoard Member

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    EXCELLENT ! I have had the same thing happen under my desk. Bob
     
  8. Ghengis Kong

    Ghengis Kong TrainBoard Member

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    Mine works fine without the rear one. Albeit is a little noisy now.
     
  9. mathi

    mathi TrainBoard Member

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    Hi Don!

    Exactly the same happened to me countless times even after vacuuming the floor. I've found peaces at unexpected places that "got lost" more than a year ago and long since replaced by spares :)

    Regards
    Mathi
     
  10. John Moore

    John Moore TrainBoard Supporter

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    Love a happy ending. Really detest carpet in my workroom, probably have so many MT coupler springs in it that I could hook up the power pack and run locos on the carpet. And the ballistics involved in each launch are awesome. Now if NASA...... HMMMM. I have found parts at least 5 feet from point of launch. However the really frustrating thing is to have something you swear went over your shoulder onto the floor be found later, still on the worktable, after spending 15 minutes on hands and knees.
     

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