DalaGStanator's Customs, Mods and Experiments

After removing the Plarail style couplings (which were found to be impractical for this model), I tried designing magnetic couplings inspired by TomyTrain (dark blue Plarail) and pre-2006 LEGO and fitting them to see if they would help fix the jamming/disengaging tender. I was unable to make perfectly aligned holes in the frame and had to use poorly glued paper bearings, so one coupling inevitably broke. For a similar reason, the magnets were incorrectly glued over full shafts and could not do a 360° flip to change polarity when needed.



Even though they were fitted too low and not very well, they did keep the tender away and there was only, like, one derailment with them. However, they didn't fix the difficult crown gear moving away and only made it worse (more frequent) than before. Even the motor seemed to lose power and get hot from the strain. Using a worm gear on the motor again made it annoyingly slow, which meant I had to do something I (really) didn't want to.



Rather than trying to reglue the motor at a full 90° again, I gave up on the fourth gear entirely and went back to the worm gear at the end of the default gear train. While I did lose all the additional torque that gave me so many hopes for the model, it also made it even quieter and only a tiny bit slower. Then again, most steamers aren't really known for their tractive effort compared to diesels/electrics. The motor also had to be rewired, in part because the previous wiring made it run backwards when I moved it to the third gear. I'm surprised it still manages to push the loco even after the torque loss, though it 'will' have to pull a train at the same time. The tender's traction tyre was also worn out and had to be taken off and discarded. Wonder how I could mount the fourth gear in a way that the crown would never disengage from it.