Kato GS-4 drive gear slippage help needed

[victor miranda]

One day I will get my act together and then I will rule the world.

Buwahahahahahah

Hi up1950s and peteski,

lets examine the requirements of the parts involved

the axles are held together by plastic axle holders.
the plastic of the axle holders seems strong enough to hold the axles together
so it does seem to be able hold against the pressures in this service.
failures seem to be caused by driver jams and the motor powering the failure.
there can be other causes, no doubt.  so a case can be made that
the plastic is not strong enough if the motor can power a reaming.
what plastic can be used that will hold in this service I do not know.

practical considerations are that
when an axle set breaks and a driver falls off,
only one of two things can have happened.
the axle holder broke or got reamed out.

the two problems are only a little different
in that what works on the crack may not work on the reamed holder.

Here is a little known property of red loc-tite.
It expands a little as it cures. (magic to me)

for a reamed out axle holder life is easy,
put a little red in there and quarter it.
clean up the extra and wait a few hours.

often the trick is getting the stuff into a tight fit hole
as it will get wiped off of the parts. 
A hand press is a wee bit tight for it.
It helps to clean the metal parts with acetone.

The cracked axle holder is a lot harder to fix because
something has to be installed to take the pressure.

Thus the brass collar or kevlar string.
I use a collar because I want the collar to press the crack shut.
if you get a snug fit with the collar, use red loc-tite to
attach the collar to the axle holder. let it cure which should press the crack shut
and then finish the fix by (pray) pressing the axle back together with the proper quartering.

If it is still loose, put the red loc-tite into the axle holder
just the same as if the axle holder had been reamed.

In all of this  the toughest part is getting the quartering just right.


super-glue is good stuff, red loc-tite may have come from super-glue technology
and there is no way they can do each other's job.

blue is great for holding flywheels that are a little loose
and I have not tried green, mostly because I have not tripped over it yet.

[mmagliaro]

A nice thing about the green (or a curse... more on that later)... is it is specifically designed to be used
AFTER the parts are put together.  It gets drawn into the joint, much like liquid styrene cement does.
This can be very handy for awkward situations where you can't put a drop on and then put the parts together,
or when you've go something slipping, and you just want to put a drop on it and not disturb or disassemble the parts.

I've been using it on metal-to-metal worms, and on plastic driver centers over metal shafts.  It seems to hold like iron.
In fact (and here's the cursing part), be careful what you wish for with this stuff.  If a drop inconveniently finds its way,
say, into the shaft bearing at the exit of a motor, and that motor is a $50 maxon with a nice
gearhead, well, we don't need to revisit that incident.

I will say, I'm not 100% positive how it would do on slippery Delrin, although it does a great job on slippery Trix K4 drivers
on their metal axles.

[up1950s]

I am back , Sandy had my sewer pipe back up for 12 hours , blocked that with The Clog Buster except for 15 gallons or so , at the expense of my Water/Sewer bill ( kind of like being shot in cold blood and the same party is suing me for the warm blood I spilled . 2 hours later I lost Con Ed , Time Warner , and Verizon . Still waiting on Verizon .

Tomorrow I will go to the auto parts store and get me some red and green lok-tite , they ought to have it . I will do some tests to see which one I will try on the real deal . Thanks for the replies/help . I will make new axle thingys as the OEM have been through hell and back with all the attempts and failures . Delrin , or some other more glue friendly plastic , Evergreen is too soft IMO .     

[victor miranda]

acetone.

if at all possible.
a loooong soak will free the parts.

one of the reasons I am very careful with loc-tite
If I can, I oil any bearing near the joint.

there is time to fix a goof ... if you notice it.  that is a darned big if.
I managed to get a side-rod attached to a driver once.
... what is holding this loco in place?....

victor

[sizemore]

This is just a thought from days dealing with old Jeep transmission cases/transfer cases. Could you not notch a spot on the steel axle then use a pin through the wheel. It would serve two purposes, to provide a lock on the wheel to the axle, and to keep the axles "in time"? Combine it with all the other whiz-bang with the loc-tite it would hold for a liftime. It's precision microsurgery but could work.

The S.

[up1950s]

This is just a thought from days dealing with old Jeep transmission cases/transfer cases. Could you not notch a spot on the steel axle then use a pin through the wheel. It would serve two purposes, to provide a lock on the wheel to the axle, and to keep the axles "in time"? Combine it with all the other whiz-bang with the loc-tite it would hold for a liftime. It's precision microsurgery but could work.

The S.

The alignment would be beyond my abilities , and it would be needed on both side of all axles . I went to than auto parts today , walked in , no lights , 3 guys talking about water with nothing coming out of the sump pump hose leading out of the front door . I didn't bother to ask if they were open . I just walked back out . Went across the neighboring boarder into Nassau , road washed away , a tree down on every 3rd side street , and every traffic light wasn't working at all , only 1 out of the 20 or so we crossed that a cop , and he really wasn't really a cop , and what I thought was his car had Jersey plates . He did an excellent job at that busy spot . Needless to say the lok-tite wasn't bought today . Another power outage for 4 hours , but when it came back so did my Verizon . I know how my telephone feeds from , but there were no trucks  on its 5 block route . Must have been re-feed differently than it used to , but I saw nothing so damaging close by that would effect all 3 of my services , strange .

[up1950s]

Ok for thread continuity I will post this hear as well as on the Weekend Update tomorrow .

First thanks for all the help in this mess . I think this will work once I get it together .



As mentioned earlier the side rods are now one piece . I took apart the driven wheel and applied the same method to it as above . The driven wheel has that collared gear . I drilled clear through the collar and after assembly truing , gauging , and quartering I will re drill through with the axle in place and pin with green Loc-tite when the mess works with the rods attached .

Again thanks for your help .

[peteski]

Thanks for the update. Carbon fiber tube?  Wow!  I thought I was bad, but this is probably the highest level of over-engineering I have ever witnessed in an N scale loco!  Sweet! 

It would be interesting to know how many GS-4s are out there still running with unmodified axles?  I suspect the number is in thousands.

[up1950s]

It would be interesting to know how many GS-4s are out there still running with unmodified axles?  I suspect the number is in thousands.

I have another that I haven't touched yet . 

[victor miranda]

in a case of who will keep the talley....

I have one kato gs-4 that visited for repair.
Kato had the parts so I didn't repair the axle.

so we KNOW the count is at 2.
I have heard of at least one other so we may be pretty sure of three.

the real telling of the story is that the axle sets are no longer available.

more than 3 have cracked...

victor

[SkipGear]

Carbon Fiber tube may conduct electricity. We have to worry about it in electric planes and heli's. A carbon frame heli can create a faraday cage and keep the radio signal from reaching a receiver mounted inside the frame.

[up1950s]

Carbon Fiber tube may conduct electricity. We have to worry about it in electric planes and heli's. A carbon frame heli can create a faraday cage and keep the radio signal from reaching a receiver mounted inside the frame.

Crap , now I need to find a Hamster sized Tampax tube .

[up1950s]

Couldn't find a retail source for the tube , but I did find and ordered from a retail source for something I can drill out , fiberglass rods . http://www.goodwinds.com/merch/list.shtml?cat=fiberglass.solidfiberglass

I also ordered this ideal OD .125 , but undersized ID .070 tube to drill out to .095 .
http://www.goodwinds.com/goodwinds/merch/list.shtml?cat=fiberglass.pultrudedfiberglasstubing

[victor miranda]

oh this is getting more and more painful.

ummm
I will call Kato on Monday and BEG them to send me a set of axles.
that way you can let this poor axle die a fair and valiant death.

most fiberglass rod is not wrapped around the outside
so there wil be nothing keeping it from cracking.
maybe you know of a source other than kitemaking.

any chance you can find ABS rod?

victor

[up1950s]

Vic , fret not , I also ordered Delrin rod last night . I really don't want to use the Kato OEM stuff . Too many points of failure for my mis-handeling mitts . Thanks for the tip on the Fiberglass , I will still see if I can make it work , if for no other reason than knowledge of limitations of the stuff .