Old Triang R52 Jinty

Thanks guys, I've followed your instructions and it moves!
Not well yet and very noisy, but I'm hoping that oiling and some cleaning of the motor will help.

Any other suggestions from our members on "how to" information will, I'm sure, be helpful.

QUOTE Not well yet and very noisy, but I'm hoping that oiling and some cleaning of the motor will help.

as I recall, with the XO4 motor, the position and the pressure of the brush spring, and teh position of the brushes themselves, was important to improving running.
too tight and they acted like brakes...too slack, and insufficient contact was made.

trial and error?

a scalpel knife end down each commutator slot? [ensure you dont have a raised edge on each commutator segment]

a polish of the commutator as well?

I dont know how modern electrical cleaner spray affects these motors..
I usually have a can of HAlfords electrical cleaner spray in my automotive kit, for my old cars.....but I haven't really tried it on train stuff.

Hi Alistair

You asked: "I dont know how modern electrical cleaner spray affects these motors.. I usually have a can of Halfords electrical cleaner spray in my automotive kit, for my old cars.....but I haven't really tried it on train stuff".

My answer: Its often not good for the brushes... unless its totally residue free / pure isopropyl alcohol.

Restoring an X0-4 or similar loco to good running..... Here's how I do it.

(BTW - don't be tempted to disassemble the magnet from the frames - you'll lose some magnet strength if the steel frames ever leave the magnet)

First....

I usually strip out the brushes and give them a good soak in solvent to leach out the oil residue thats inevitably got into them over the years.

I then wash them off with soapy water, dip in meths for a while (1/2 hour) to get the last of the moisture out and air dry overnight.

I take the now brushless motor and cover it with detergent and give it a good cleaning with a stiff-ish paintbrush to get rid of the grime of ages.

at the same time I do the same to the rest of the chassis parts, making them perfectly clean.

I then use a tightly rolled bit of VERY fine wet and dry in each axle slot to polish it a bit (roll to a tight thin tube the size of the axle slot - the idea is to clean and poish not change the slot size, so by fine I mean finer than 600 grit. (Used wet)

back to the motor.

I reassemble the motor and with 12v of power on it (you want high revs), gently and carefully polish the commutator with a thin finger of 1000+ grit wet and dry paper glued to a thin strip of wood.

when its perfectly shiny and polished I clean the commutators with a sharpened toothpick and lubricate sparingly both ends. reassemble and lubricate worm with a wee bit of vaseline. Lubricate axles with a tiny drop of teflon based oil from the fishing tackle shop (Fishing reel oil is always excellent stuff, super stable, plastic safe and stays where its put, not like light machine oils which eventually get everywhere!)

99.9% of the time ithe loco will then run better than it ever did - the polishing in chassis and on commutator which removes any irregualrities was never done at original Mfr so axle guides will be smoother/pickup via axles better too... and the commutator will now be better balanced and sparking will be almost nil.

slow running should be better than ever before

Regards

Richard

QUOTE (dbclass50 @ 25 Aug 2007, 07:50) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>It went on the RH side (as you looked in the direction of travel) - loco would go in the opposite direction to "normal" if the wrong way round. However, this was useful for creating head on crashes in those pre-DCC schoolboy days !

(Yes BRITHO, I was a destructive b***** in those days.)

He he he... my cousin used to do that, and after he had smashed up his models, my aunt would give them to me; my dad made the mistake of giving me a tool set for my 4th birthday, and I took apart like anything with my screwdrivers, and (with some help from dad) put it back together again.

More often than not, all that was necessary to get an engine running was a couple of spare parts, and the engine was fine and dandy again. Hence my obsession with being able to buy spares for my models. You never know...

If a model was smashed beyond repair (my cousin was a bit pyromaniac... ), often I could put the wheels to good use, or use an engine´s motor to drive a windmill or so.