Hello, me again. I notice my F7 wobbles slightly side to side as it goes along. I read it has trucks that pivot front to back and side to side. Is there a way to fix this wobble? It seems like something that would of came up before, so I ask. Maybe a small square of soft foam to limit the side to side travel? Thanks
I'd guess that either your wheels are out of gauge, or you have a set with the flaw he identified at the tread/flange connection. I would suggest you contact Glen Chenier in Allen, TX. He is the F7 guru, and does our wheel wiper and DCC installs in them. He can identify issues with a loco and get parts to fix if needed. Glen's email: glen@teetertottertreestuff.com Adam
I just checked the gauge and it's fine. The wheels stay on the track, but the whole upper body can rock back and forth way too much. Like it was designed to run on a roller coaster. Like one of those rock crawler jeeps!
http://www.wiringfordcc.com/zmtf7.htm "...note any excessive wobble of each wheel when wheel is pressed against side of truck casting. Sometimes wheels are not perpendicular to the axle and will cause locomotive wobble when running. Replace any wheelsets with excess wobble of one or both wheels..." other web pages of interest: http://www.conrailray.com/index.php?link=http://www.conrailray.com/zscale/mt_f7abba/rolling/mt_f7rolling.htm and http://www.teetertottertreestuff.com/ best rgrds Chris
I don't know how to fix wobble, but I know a great way to live with it... Sing after me... Hi Ho! Hi Ho! -Robert
Adam's recommendation of Glen Chenier is right on. He is THE F7 guru. Unfortunately, Glen's workshop is out of commision for at least 2 months while he relocates. I had just recently contacted him about a wheel wiper installation and tune-up, as well as a B-unit power conversion. That's the only reason I know. I also had a couple of F7's with the dreaded wobble. Unfortunately, a lot of them came from the factory this way. Some can be corrected, and some need wheelset replacements. Not that you couldn't do it yourself, but Glen definitely has it down to an art. I'm just going to wait. It's worth it. Glen is a pleasure to deal with, and his work and attention to detail are outstanding.
Thanks, Those are some great links. I didn't think the wheels themselves wobbled, but now I will check it out further. My other F7's should be here shortly, I'll do them all at once.
Update to an old thread... I see many MTL F7s of varying ages. The old ones have beautifully polished wheel flanges, almost perpendicular to the axle. These do not wobble or shake. The flange polish and shape appears to be the result of many hours of running and break-in while rubbing against the rails. There was a batch of production wheels a few years ago that had a slight upwards curve in the tread as it approached the flange. This caused horrendous shaking as the wheels hunted between the rails. When this was brought to their attention, MTL immediately fixed the tooling problem and again produced wheels with a flat tread. This solved most of the problem. Brand new wheels have very small tooling ridges in the flanges that can grab the rails and cause some shake and wobble. In a recent case, had replaced the wheels and still saw more than usual shake, wobble and roll. Was stumped at first, but after 4 hours of running at 30 scale MPH on tight curves, the excess SWR disappeared once the flange tooling ridges wore down slightly from rail rub.
The wobbling is due to worn bearing pads on one of the metal truck/gear towers. We identified it about two years ago and retoold the mold to take care of it. If you want Chris, email me at work and I'll talk with production and get you a set of trucks that work correctly. New wipers and the like will help with power routing but not the wobble. Cheers Joe MTL
Joe, Thanks for the offer, but I fixed these a while back. It was the metal "whiskers" on the inside of the frame halves. They were loose I guess and the whole locomotive would wobble like a bobble head while going down the track. I think it was Glen (thanks!) that told me about it. I popped them open bent the wipers out and everything is fine now. But hey while I got you here... Please make F3's : D
Had an early peek at the 2008 Hallmark ornaments. It may already be viewable to club members. It appears something in NYC will be produced this year. Could be a F3 with some passenger cars?? Time will tell..... Thanks for the post links. I thought it would be easy for Hallmark to do a NYC F3 since they had already done the ATSF Chief versions. Hope the 3"W makes it fit into Zscale with some nice coach/observation cars similar to last year's AFT.
Early view of Hallmark book http://images.kodakgallery.com/photos4787/2/56/70/90/59/7/759907056208_0_ALB.jpg And http://bp1.blogger.com/_DNBgcdrHVnA/R8x_PW9aouI/AAAAAAAAADA/3MNl2iUiwSM/s1600-h/20080229_prod_3.gif ...
That FT shell might be useful! NP had several ABBA sets, and if they to an A and a B, then I will have to do a set. If I put GP9 mechanisms in them, with that super heavy metal shell, I can pull a hundred car train! And NP's black scheme works wonders at hiding shell lumpiness.
I think that should read 3 1/2 " L. If it was 3 1/2 " Wide it would be O scale! Can you imagine putting that on a tree. "Handcrafted of metal" , you'd need 4 of 'em to balance the tree and hope the branches don't break off. I'm not a Lionel guy, so I have no knowledge of what the Lionel FTs looked like, but did Lionel make a "B" unit in the FT style? Joe Hueber <lv4142003>
I'm betting it's the same shell that they used for the ATSF F years ago. 3 1/2 inches would be closer to N scale than Z. Maybe we might get something useful in the miniature series. Randy
