I finally got around to working on my Bachmann Spectrum 80 ton three-truck shay. If you have one of these, you may have an idea already what I mean by 'working on'. Ha. When I bought this little beauty almost 15 years ago, it ran like a Swiss watch. I really ran it hard on the Orange County Module Railroaders layout, much to the chagrin of folks in the club who wanted to follow it around the layout with another train. The engine's top speed was a crawl compared to the standard steamer or diesel lash-up, as it should be!
But I think that caused some excess wear on the gears and maybe pushed the motor too hard. Since pulling it out of storage it has had an excessive whine. Also, I noticed that it has the same problem as many (most?) other Bachmann shays - cracked drive shaft gears. A couple years back I purchased a NWSL regear kit, anticipating sitting down with the engine and changing out the cracked gears on the drive shaft. Over the Christmas 2013 break I finally set out to do just that, and perhaps determine the source of the whine.
Before changing the gears, or even opening the NWSL package, WATCH THIS VIDEO. If the link is broken, please search Youtube for 'DCC HO Scale 3 truck Shay upgrade 4-1-13' by tsgmultimedia. Then, read the directions that come with the NWSL kit, then read them again. You decide if you are comfortable pushing on plastic parts with pliers and possibly breaking them, OR pushing them out of their press-fit holes and possibly breaking them. Slippery is an understatement! Fortunately good old CA superglue will glue them back together, whatever choice you make. Ask me how I know.
So I got the gears changed and installed a DCC decoder in the engine. Easy peasy (the decoder). Put her on the rails and she ran well. But that whine was still there. Think 'tie-fighter' and you've got it. So after stepping away from the project for a day I decided to go ahead and dismantle the engine and clean the main internal gears. Sure enough, plenty of white factory grease in the gearbox, but black residue on the gears and very little grease. I cleaned out the old grease, cleaned off the gears, and applied some Labelle 102, my go-to gear grease.
After a frustrating reassembly, I put her back on the track and the whine was...reduced considerably. In fact, the whine is gone, but there remains a grinding growl. I am now left wondering if there is further internal gear damage, slop in the internal gears, or motor damage. I am not in the place where I can bench test this thoroughly - my power supply is attached to the layout on the opposite side of the room from my workbench - doh! - so I'll just run it for now and enjoy switching Pinto when I need a train running fix.
The other work I've done on the shay was to letter the water tender for the 'Big Tujunga Lumber Company' and put a great big number 5 on the coal tender. Some of my dry transfer lettering was a little older than the rest, and had a tendency to pick up bits from letters I'd just put down. GRRR..... But after a few sessions, little by little, I managed to create this:
On one side I actually had to create the 'M's from parts of an N, a V and an H, in that order. Eventually I'll touch up the paint on this engine and weather it. I've got a decent fireman figure for the cab, but could use a nicer engineer - both need to be standing, based on the cab setup.
This is a beautiful engine, but a real challenge to repair and maintain. Good luck with yours, if you've got one in need of repair. Email if you've got questions or comments. Thanks for reading!
