Preparing for the next outing

It was a pretty busy and somewhat stressful February, with two exhibition weekends back-to-back and more than a few faults to resolve in between.

Thankfully I've been able to take it easy over the last few weeks, with only a couple of locos requiring attention.

Primary job was to get the E3002 loco running, having done a motor swap with one of the EMUs. Bascially I had a very strong, original magnet in the motor of the E3002 loco and as the motor bogie is identical to the EMU, it was swapped with one of the poor runners, knowing that I had a spare neo ringfield magnet at home that I could install.

The neo ringfields can't be fitted to a standard EMU without further modification due to the metal sides, whereas the E3002 is plastic. Once this minor repair was done, the loco was fully tested and put back in the box ready for the next outing.

The green EMU was a bit more serious. No real issues with the magnet but very noisy and kept stalling because the gear cog was severly worn on one side.

At this angle, the damage is hard to see...

But viewed from this angle, it's much easier to see the extent of the wear...

EMU / E3002 motor bogies are not the easiest to acquire, so after some head-scratching I retreated to the loft to check the size of the gear cogs fitted to the Co-Co / Co-Bo locos, knowing that I had a scrap motor bogie up there.

Having checked the service sheets, the part number of the gear cog is the same on the Co-Co and Co-Bo (as expected) but is listed under a different number for the EMU. Having compared the two together it was hard to tell, especially as the original is so badly worn, so I just decided to fit it anyway...

And it worked!

After bench running the motor I gave it a run around the loft track - no noise, no stalling. Another one to go back in the box ready for this weekend.

The only loco remaining in need of attention is St Paddy. Hopefully I will get time before the weekend to replace the missing brush spring, if I can find one.