08/04/2024

Thomas arrives at Pix Valley railway

After a protracted journey of some 11 days Thomas arrived at Pix Valley railway starting in Llandrindod Wells travelling north to Argyle for a quick stop over back on the road on the 5^th heading for the A74M and onto the  M6 and M1 arriving at 09:15 on the 8^th April.

Thomas need a little TLC an the odd fettle more will become apparent when he is in the shed however first impression he has a drive train issue.

Thomas was wheeled into the shed, Body lifted from the chassis to show the extent of the issue the left side pickup are twisted out of true, excessive oil and some gritty black debris (I suspect loose ballast) around the gears the traction tyres X8101 are shot and cracks around the screw holes in the base plate X8019 I have ordered up replacement parts I performed a quick check on the motor with 12Vdc all seems to be working correctly.

Gritty debris 10x magnification 

Do I scrap Thomas or source replacement parts checking on line the wheel sets are unavailable as spares. I have found a "working” chassis so it’s worth a buy in now of £20.

13/04/2024

The replacement chassis arrived this morning and was test run on DC all working fine although he has a pronounced wobble.

16/04/2024

The replacement chassis was stripped although had been messed about with big time the quartering was all screwed up on the wheels so the rods were binding. Strip down and investigated it seems that the screw which holds the motor to the chassis had been stripped and wasn't holding the motor in mesh with the gears. This resulted in the nylon gears being slightly damaged. Next requirement is to clean up and re-tap the thread in the chassis to hold the motor. The existing hole was deepened with a 1.55mm drill and tapped to 2mm a longer 2 mm screw from the bits box held the motor in place.

It was obvious the wheels had be off previously and refitted by eye! Each axle was disassembled the wheels cleaned and re-quartered using my quartering jig, for some reason the Hornby Thomas leads with the left will rather than the norm of the right this was not a problem because I could correct it when I reassembled wheels. New traction tyres fitted to the centre wheels and the the back to back with a gauge.

 Cleaned and reassembled light oil on the moving parts by reducing the length of the springs on the trailing axle by one coil has cured his wobble.

Next18 socket fitted and chip programmed he starts off at notch 1 some fine tweaking may be require when he has had a good run.

I also managed to squeeze a sugar cube speaker into the smoke box 

Thomas wheel quartering commenced all the wheels were removed from the axels cleaned and pressed back onto the correct quartering using my jig, 

checking the back to back with a gauge. It was obvious the wheels had be off and refitted by eye!

Next18 socket fitted and chip programmed he starts off at notch 1 some fine tweaking may be required when he has had a good run. I also managed to squeeze a sugar cube speaker into the smoke box