Help "Quartering" a Loco

[mecgp7]

I have an old Atlas Davenport switcher that I was tinkering with. It has drive "rods" between the front and rear wheels with the middle wheel not connected (see pic). I took the wheels out without removing the rods and without  twisting the wheels. There is a plate on the bottom of the loco and the geared wheels fall out when it is removed. I figured that I could simply set them back in again. Wrong. It binds. Any ideas how to get it right?  The gear configuration is geared wheel set, gear, geared wheel set, gear, geared wheel set.

[mmagliaro]

Well, trying to avoid a long complicated discussion of quartering, if it ran before and you didn't twist the wheels on their axles,
it can surely work again if you get the wheels dropped back in there correctly.

The photo clearly shows that they are wrong.  You want to get one rod running dead horizontal across the drivers on one side,
and then on the other side, the other rod should also be dead horizontal, but the crank holes on the wheels should all be rotated 90 degrees around from the ones on the first side (1 quarter of a rotation).

Since they are all geared, this will be easier than many engines. 

Flipped on its back, get the rear axle in, then get the center one in.  Now when you drop in the front axle, if you end up with rods that are not horizontal, gently lift that one up and just barely out so it clears the gear teeth, rotate it ONE tooth in the right direction, and
then try again, dropping it in.  It will rotate over the gear as it goes in, so you will have to go trial-and-error, advancing one tooth at a time and trying to rotate/drop it back in until you get it right.

I haven't been inside that particular beasty you've got there, so there might be a much easier way (for example, if the idlers can be removed and dropped in after the driver axles are in place).  But not having one of those here, the generic rotate/drop/try again
method should eventually work.

[UP4-8-8-4]

Quartering is pretty easy to do, just takes some time.
Here's a link that pretty much shows and explains how.

http://www.wwfry.org/pics/SteamLocomotiveQuartering.pdf

[nkalanaga]

Since it isn't driven by the rods, it doesn't have to be perfectly "quartered", in the sense that  the two sides are 90 degrees different.  All that matters is that both drivers on a side are set the same, which if they didn't get moved, they should be.  As MMagliaro says, they should go back in, no quartering needed, but it could take some tinkering.

[mecgp7]

Thanks guys. I did get her back together and running. As pointed out, it really wasn't quartering. The issue was setting the two axles connected by the rods at the right spacing so that the other gears would fit between them.  It amazes me how these little locos run considering their age. With clean contacts and clean track they can creep. The only prototype that I found that matches the Atlas one was owned by the Rock Island.

[mmagliaro]

You are all correct that it doesn't have to be "quartered" strictly speaking, especially since the wheels are all gear-driven
and the rods no-doubt have egg-shaped holes to allow for lots of slop in the motion.  The rods just have to be horizontal and it will
work.

It would be nice for aesthetic reasons if you got them somewhat close to an offset of 90 degrees.  It just looks better running down the track that way.  (well, okay, I'm fussy about these things)

[peteski]

It would be nice for aesthetic reasons if you got them somewhat close to an offset of 90 degrees.  It just looks better running down the track that way.  (well, okay, I'm fussy about these things)

Hey Max,
How are you able to tell that the rods on the other side of the loco aren't 90 degrees offset from the side that you are viewing?  I don't think that on this model you can see that from a head-on view, can you?    . . . just bustin' your cookies - hope that you don't mind . . .

[nkalanaga]

You're right that those old locos run when everything is right.  I dug an ancient Atlas 0-8-0, long ago converted to a 2-8-0 with a Kadee conversion kit, from the bottom of my junk pile.  It was in a box, not the original, but hasn't been run for at least 35 years.  Cleaned the wheels a little, put it on the track, and off it went.  A little hesitant at first, but after a few feet it ran quite nicely.

I still don't have a use for it, as the BN didn't run mainline steam in 1974, so back in the box it went.  If I'm still around in 2051 maybe I'll try it again.

[mmagliaro]

Hey Max,
How are you able to tell that the rods on the other side of the loco aren't 90 degrees offset from the side that you are viewing?  I don't think that on this model you can see that from a head-on view, can you?    . . . just bustin' your cookies - hope that you don't mind . . .

Ha!  No problem, man.
We are often looking somewhat down on our engines, though, and you can sometimes see it from above.  If the quartering is at least approximate, you'll never know.  But if they were to be, say, set up to be running almost in unison on both sides, I think it would look really funny.