Here's mine having a test fitting of what will probably be it's new tender. The body is from an old Minitrix old timer 0-6-0 (Minitrix (Germany) 0-6-0) mounted on a Bachmann slopeback underframe.
Skipgear, is there a trick to removing the front coupler? I though I'd swap it for a McHenry while I was waiting for the paint stripper to do it's work on the new tender shell but can't get the original one off. Removing the screw that holds it in seems to do nothing.
You have to slide the bottom plate off of the coupler. It was a little tight on mine but it slides back toward the pilot truck. It slides through the pilot to become the bottom of the coupler box. To put the McHenry in, you need to shave a little off of the front of the coupler box also to clear the shorter shank coupler. I cut the trip pin off but you may be able to get away with leaving it.
Thanks, I'll give that a try. I thought that was how it worked but mine is so tight I thought it a good idea to ask someone who had already done it, my 4-6-0 is a good runner and I don't want to do any unnecessary disassembling or knock anything out of place by applying to much force in the wrong places.
That was easy once I knew I was doing the right thing, until the cover plate decided to escape from the tweezers as I was putting it back together but I fashioned a new one from part of an old 1015 coupler box. The ease with which a McHenry fits leaves me wondering why Bachmann didn't use their own working coupler on the front in the first place.
Guys, this is little off-topic, but could one of you provide me with a couple of key dimensions of the 4-6-0?? I have a kitbash in mind (see below). Specifically, I need to know the driver diameter, fixed wheelbase (distance between centerlines of outer drivers) and total wheelbase for the locomotive only. Any help will be appreciated. Regards, Otto
Found them..... Driver Tread Dia. - .365"= 58.4" Driver Flange Dia. - .412" = 65.92" Wheebase - .935" = 149.6" Wheelbase from front pilot to rear driver - 1.779" = 284.64" There is space to go to a larger driver on theses. I was looking at the Consolidation drivers but they only gain you 1 scale inch. Not enough to justify even trying. These could probably work with up to a 63-65" driver, maybe even larger if you blind the center driver so the flanges don't interfere. The Bachmann light mountain has 62.5" drivers and a similar axle set up. I wish I had a parts Mountain to try. Bachmann offers the heavy mountain drivers seprately, but at $20 for the set, might be a bit much for an experiment.
Tony, thank you very much for taking the time to do measure the loco for me. Unfortunately, it looks like my idea won't work; the Santa Fe 1900 engines had 69" drivers and 15' rigid wheelbase. It illustrates just how diminuitive the B-man ten-wheeler really is. I think I will still get one, just to support the hobby.... Thanks again, Otto
Just do what I did so I could run steam despite the shortage of suitable Santa Fe prototypes, make up your own railroad. I was surprised how small they are when I got mine too, worth getting one to see what N scale is capable of. (Never thought I'd say that about something with Bachmann stamped underneath.)
Bought a Bachmann 4-6-0 from Wig-Wag at the Anaheim GTE show on Sunday. Thanks to the folks at the N-Land Pacific modular club, we tested it on DCC and ran great right out of the box. I ran it on DC with no modifications today at home. After about 30 minutes or so of "break in" there was a noticeable click and it started to stall/jerk in forward but ran great in reverse. Thanks to this tread I tightened the right hand driver rod hex nut and all was then right with the world. While I was at it, I turned the pilot wheels over so the "springs" on the casting are a pyramid rather than a funnel. All works great on DCC and DC now. I call this one a winner for my freelanced "layout". Lindley Ruddick
I have been having front truck derailment problems but my front truck has no silver side. Both the top and bottom are black. Tony, I notice this has a little triangular design on the side of the pilot truck (simulated spring suspension) that can either be pointy-side-up or pointy-side-down. Which way do you have this one your modified one? Mine took a head-first dive yesterday at a joint between modules at my NTrak club, with the pilot truck derailing to the left and knocking the simulated valve gear out of place. I am still trying to decide whether mine needs a trip back to Bachmann or whether I can take care of this in-house. I put the valve gear back in place, but I don't know if I should give it a little droplet of glue or not. Adam
Posted earlier in the topic....the point of the triangle should be facing up when the loco is setting on the track. The bottom of the pilot is smooth and has a slight recess for the screw head to set into.
I may have to try your mods for the pilot drawbar as this truck was bouncing around in both configurations. When I started having these problems last night I cam looking for this thread. Thanks for the excellent diagrams.
Tony, sorry to keep running this into the ground, but I wanted to be clear on what I am doing here before I do it. Once the bar holding the pilot truck is removed the pilot truck is (correct me if I am wrong here) screwed into a drilled and tapped hole in the post beneath the smokebox on the boiler (\correct me if I am wrong here). I am having no end to trouble with the self-derailing features of this locomotive, and so I am ready to go for the radical drawbarectomy approach if need be, Thanks, Adam
The pilot truck connecting link doesn't need to move locations. It is still installed as shown beneath the forward gear cover retaining screw. The big issue is flipping over the pilot truck and the most recent versions don't need this done. When mounted incorrectly, the pilot truck was lifting on the front of the loco and causing the front of the pilot truck to lift also.
These problems were covered quite extensively in the old Atlas Forum back when the 4-6-0 originally was released. The standard answer for pilot derails was to get the truck installed right-side up. Binding and stalling was also covered, if anybody wants to go back and look at the Atlas archived forum.
The info in the Atlas forum came from here. Where and what situation is it derailing in? Have you checked the obvious like a bad/out of round wheel, improper gauge on the axle, etc?
The wheels seem fine though the outer edges of the wheels are scored slightly. I loaned my NMRA gauge to someone and haven't gotten it back, and that's probably what I really need to check next. What I did do is put the truck back the way you show it, minus the putty or whatever, and I will try it again. Where it pops all over are over turnouts at the club layout. I have checked the turnouts, and they don't seem to have any issues. The truck appears to skip pretty lightly down the track under even normal conditions so when it hits a turnout if it picks anything it just swings off the track. I feel like if it were mounted on a spring or something that exerted even a little downward pressure that the issue would be solved. I have been looking around junk boxes to see if I have something that might work. You mentioned that weight and springs were not the answer in your case. I am determined to get this running correctly in the next couple months so I am going to keep plugging away at it until that happens. Adam
