I am a fan of life-like FA/FB-1 Units. These die-cast, split frame units seem to be a great value. Unfortunately I have two that have been noisy from their escape from the box. I have taken them apart at least 20 times, lubed, rotated trucks from unit to unit(even used trucks off quiet ones that I have), they still run noisy. Yesterday I had a little free time and decided to pursue another course of action. I have observed that the ones I have that run well all seem to be finished better. The frames are distinctly cut with more room for tolerance of motor end play etc. I took the noisiest runner I have (even the cat fears it) and took it down to the basic frame. I looked at the pockets for the trucks and the area for the flywheels, sure enough they are rougher than my smooth runners. I took the frame out to my garage and put it into my blasting cabinet. I used 54 grit aluminum oxide and blasted the frame completely clean. I took it out and used a small burr tool and an exacto knife to detail the truck pockets. I also used this tool to define the edges of the flywheel pockets. After a thorough going over, I went back to the cabinet and concentrated on these areas. Carefully blasting these areas opened up the tolerances. I then chamfered the motor cut out from the inside, back to the blaster to smooth everything out. The finished frame looks a lot better than the other noisy bugger I have. I then set the motor in a jig I made and used a fine sand belt stick to smooth out both flywheels. I took just a bit off of each one, checked with a caliper to see if they were equal. I then used the same sanding stick to chamfer the ends of the flywheels. Before reassembly I thoroughly cleaned the drive shaft and discovered the end cap had a split in it. I replaced this with one from a junker I had. I took the brass worm gear and a fine file and ran the flash off the gears. I finished it with a brass brush to clean it up. It was much smoother than the one I had not done yet. I carefully reassembled the unit, lubed the worm gear with a small dot of Labelle gear lube. The result was amazing! This noisy , annoying little loco now runs as smooth as a brand new Proto unit. The downside to the whole story is that I forgot it was running on the layout went to answer the phone and Ruff the trainmaster aka cat, swatted it off the track. As I turned, I saw it hit the floor. The good news is that I still love the cat, and I was able to put the train back together and it runs just as well. The really bad news is that the rear plastic truck frame that fits over the truck is missing a small chunk. Hopefully someone will have one laying around and I will be able to replace it. For anyone that has one of these noisy devils, I hope this will help you get it back to smooth running. Did I say that I probably have 40 hours in this? I just couldn't use it , and would never sell something like this to anyone. Now I would have no problem passing it on. My grandson is sure it's his, just for cheering me on while I did it. I am still looking for FA-1 and FB-1 Shells and now a truck. Hope this helps anyone with one of these that are noisy, sure like mine better now.
It's interesting that there would be so much difference of quality in the same product line. I assume a single model production run would last only a few weeks, assuming no more than a few thousand units in a run, unlike automobile models where production runs up to a year. Maybe this is like the auto assembly warning from 60-70 years ago, never buy a car assembled on Monday mornings (hangovers) or Friday afternoons (anxious to get to bars).
I can use a little bit of help from anyone who is willing. I am pretty much a lone wolf when it comes to modeling and just wanted to post a couple photos for some feedback but it keeps telling me the files are to large. My computer skills are very limited .How can I solve this?
Do you have Windows or Mac? If Windows, do you have MS Office installed? Open image using Picture Manager. Click Edit on the right. Click Export on the right. Select "jpeg" and save image. Now use the resulting image to upload here. If Mac, open image in Preview. File menu --> Export. Select "jpeg" for format and click Save. Now use the resulting image to upload here. In both cases you will have the option to adjust the level of "Quality" so that the resulting image is not larger than 2 woo woo woo.
If you trued up the flywheels for minimum runout, that was probably the main factor in reducing noise. It eliminated a lot of vibration. Back when I bought my Life-Like E7s, one of them was much noisier than the others and I noticed one of the flywheels was not true, even though it appeared to be mounted on the motor shaft correctly. I rigged up a file so it couldn't move and moved the turning flywheel against it so the high spots were removed. It didn't take much but that loco ended up at least as quiet as the others. Doug
