Bachmann American ??

[Catt]

Hi guys,

    I have this old Bachmann 4-4-0 American with a rather annoying little problem.The old girl runs amazingly well for a trainset loco.I've had her since forever I think (I was warned it would not last 20 minutes back around 1996 I think).

Anyway to get to the problem.If I am not real careful picking her up the darn drive shaft falls out. Have any of you had this problem? Were you able to solve it.I believe glue is out of the question,but there must be something I can do ,I just can't seem to figure it out.

[davefoxx]

Reminds me of the joke: A guy goes to his doctor and says, "Doc, it hurts when I do this."  Doctor replies, "Don't do that."

Seriously, don't even think about gluing the driveshaft in.  There's no way that could do any good.  As long as the locomotive operates without the driveshaft falling out, I would just continue to be careful handling it.

DFF

[peteski]

+1

All you have to do is grasp both the loco and the tender together (using one hand) while picking it up off the track.  That is how I pick up most of my N scale steam locos with tenders. Larger ones (like Mallet, AC-12 or Big Boy) require 2 hands to pick them up off the rails.

The plastic ear on the 4-4-0's tender is not really designed to support the weight you place on it by having either the tender or the loco dangling from it.

[spookshow]

Does the driveshaft have the older "hex cup" style connectors? The most recent version has "ball-with-pins" connectors, which seem to be more likely to stay connected.

Cheers,
-Mark

[Catt]

Mark,I have had the loco since shortly after Christmas '96 so without digging it out of the drawer my guess would be the older style (I have a severe case of CRS) . As for carefully handling the little buggar I learned that before '97 was here.

I do have a much newer one though and it does have the ball with pins connection Ir runs even better than the old one though we sorted through 8 locos to get the best running one.I am concidering a small dab of grease (probaly wheel bearing) on each end to give the shaft a little more grip without interfearing with flexability.