I am going to replace an X04 motor from a Triang Battle of Britain and have purchased an Airfix MRRC motor which is practically identical in size.
But... and it is a big but.... there is no lug at the back of the motor to attach the motor to the chassis. Not surprising really since Airfix were not expecting to power a Triang locomotive.
Does anybody have a tried and tested way of attaching a replacement open frame motor in similar circumstances?
Looking at the problem it could be possible to attach a piece of aluminium in the shape of a Z to the top of the motor and the drill a hold in the lower part of the Z to attach to the chassis.
"SquiddlyDiddly" wrote > But... and it is a big but.... there is no lug at the back of the motor
Iain Rice offers a number of suggestions to locate motors in his Wild Swan book on building loco chassis, and seems to think it's a pretty moveable feast as long as the mesh is maintained constant at the wormgear. Among them are wire ties and his favourite for awkward corners or can motors, a blob of the silicone sealant used to caulk window frames. Squirt a lump of that down where the screwdown lug is on the X04 and let it set. It has advantages of vibration damping too.
Rice's big bugbear is poor mesh and shaft whip because the other end of the motor is inadequately supported so you get noisy gear mesh and bearings that wear themselves conoid (the XO4 nose bearing is particularly weak in this area). He recommends outrigger bearings and/or better motor bearings to eliminate this. So consider all aspects of the fixing, not just replicating what the standard fitment was. I actually like the XO4 but it's an elderly design that could do with a bit of holistic attention to get the best out of it, not least mounting it in the tender and using a propshaft to drive the loco, with outrigger bearings and whatever. It has simplicity and considerable rugged power on its side (and considerable current drain) and I'm continuing to use them, ditto the Triang doublestart wormgear which is tough. A useful upgrade is the high-flux magnets being sold on eBay (go to Collectables > Trains and Railway Models and search on "Magnet"), but to get the best for this turbocharge your bearings will need to be good.
Should be. I bought my copy at Pendon Museum three years ago, but Wild Swan titles seem to have a long shelf life so you'll track one down somewhere. Bob Pearmain Books if you come to the East Anglian shows, but others hold stock. (We all love to diss Wild Swan for their backward ways, like apparently getting OUT of email for MRJ, but the upside is that they cling to publishing practices of the old school, such as not discounting stock after six months just to get it out of the warehouse, as Waterstones and the like do).
I am a great devotee of Ricey's methods generally: he writes well and seems to be on the side of the general "can-do" modeller, though IMO the supposedly pernicious influence of snooty dead-scale modellers is a great deal less than tribal superstition would have it. After all, we all want stuff that looks good and runs well, so why not aim for the standards that achieve both? That's what got me out of coarse 00 (just in time, before I started nailing track to timber) into being an EM modeller and EMGS member: there are few better sources of real information than the EMGS Manual, and we just seem to sidestep the gruesome problems that afflict those who trust in red boxes and wail on this group when feeble components fail unsurprisingly to do their job. Plus EMGS members that I meet at shows are just great blokes generally - all runners and builders, not a "mint boxed" collector among them.
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