Fixing an old Bachmann HO 2-10-4 Texas Chugger
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- Picked this one up a while back for a decent deal and finally got to finishing it! These 2-10-4 steam engines are sloppy and not really well built, but can run alright with more work than most will want to do. It still needs a little more fine-tuning, but things at least turned out alright!
On a side note, this is the first video to come from my now operational new computer, and not only did it not crash even once during editing, but it processed and finished the video 5 times faster than my old one would've done! Also, I forgot how noisy that old chair was. I threw it out a long time ago after finding broken welds under the seat.
Had one of the Bachmann Texas locomotives in the late 80s early 90s. Dumped the stock tender and swapped it for a Rivarossi NKP Berkshire tender as well as some other paint and decal work to make a pretty passable Chicago Great Western Texas class. Thing was a lugging machine as the club I belonged to at the time had a roughly 40 X 20 modular layout and at Trainfest in Milwaukee in 91 or so ran a pretty sizable CGW reefer train. At some point a number of the club members started to wonder at what point the Texas would stall Outland so members began staging cars in the staging yard and as the tail end would pass tie on more cars. If the Texas had a stall limit we were unable to find it because the dummy front coupler was practically inches from the caboose and physically no more room to put another car on.
Thought I remember the red glue was a telltale to indicate if the motor had been opened for warranty purposes.
it seems as if the original owner thought the poor engine was cold, giving it something to smoke and a scarf. Great job of fixing things as usual.
I think that's a great looking engine. I like old toy trains and bluebox athearn. It kills me when something that looks that good and runs gives me nothing but trouble.
I have to give you high marks for your tenacity and calm attitude. I can't believe that you went back to it two years later. Great stuff.
Me too, I don't have the patience he does.
Awesome skills--wonderful results, D.S. It's a nice looking locomotive from Bachmann too. Thank you for sharing.
Darth, your a brave soul working on those split axles on the Bachmann Texas. Mainline OO British locomotives, also made by Kadar suffer the same fate. The bodies are well detailed, however the plastic used for the split wheel design weakens over time with use and lubrication. Another you-tube channel OO Bill used some super glue and baking powder to remedy this problem. I have several of these Mainline/Dapol steamers so have an interest in keeping them running.
They have at least improved the plastic for their gears and axles in the past 20 years or so, but they really had problems for a while! They’re still not perfect, but they are better.
Was I about to sleep? Yes. Would I rather watch the New Darth Santa Fe video? Yep! I have one of the 4-8-4s, so I may be able to learn from this!
Looks like the same shell
The 4-8-4 is built the same as this one and even has the same shell, so I hope this does help with getting it working!
Considering it's not built to last, you've done exceedingly well.
Thank you for making this video. I have a machine like this, bought used, which is defective, and this video will help me fix it.
I had no idea how old it was and also how rare it was.
Thanks. Greetings from Brazil.
Great video Darth. Bachmann was really good a making nice looking locomotives, but horrible at mechanisms. I know Bowser made a repower kit for this locomotive.
Also, the red resin on the terminals from my understanding is there to see if anyone tampered with the locomotive for the warranty. Its not a good threadlocker and its usually on the screw head instead of the threads. Hope to see more!
Done a great job on repairing a pretty rough loco. Well done to you for showing how to do it tutorial. A lot of hard work to improve its running. Maybe you can replace the sound system with a modern offering to finish it off.
I really enjoy your shows. I have fixed a lot of Bachmann Steam engines; A tip I would give you is that you never really have to remove the pins or the side rods, almost never. The reason is they are so well affixed. When the necessity arises that the axles are cracked, you can just rotate the wheels to the proper quartering position. Then you can affix with crazy glue and baking soda
Axles
Funny 😂🤣 watching it run! 🚂🚂🚂🚂🚂🚂 Cho Choo all aboard the money train!.
Carbon conductive grease...... helps greatly with electrical pickup especially when lubrication is needed where the pickup is.
Darth great repair! I'm even achieving a certain amount of precision in my own repairs, you've certainly helped me and I'm sure others as well! Bless you Darth! And before I forget thanks a million! Happy Railroading Kid!
Another great video Darth. An old sock now that is a first. Take care, Jeff.
Yeah that sound unit was... definitely a thing. Wonder if it was nothing more than a 555 timer to cause that speaker to squelch regularly hence why it started at "full speed" even when starting out, I can guess why that sock was shoved in there though, the previous owner probably hated it as well! 🤣🤣 That said, all those caps in there I was thinking you should just stuff a big stay a live setup in there if you're having pickup issues, but it seems making the tender wheels have pickups works just as well.
Could be! I don’t think it was a modern 555, but I’m sure they used something similar. Stay-alives are nice, but I consider additional pickups to be the better long-term solution where possible.
I had one of those once. Mine once pulled 30 cars. Had no more room either. My layout was smaller. I still have it but it is in pieces now. I'm considering repowering it and changing it to a tender pickup so I can convert it to dcc. Haven't worked out all the particulars yet though.
Coincidentally, one of my current projects is kitbashing the universally hated Bachmann 0-6-0 split chassis locos. It's fairly easy to swap in a cd-rom motor. I converted the valve gear and steam chests to Laird style and found that 0-90 hex-head screws can replace the iffy crank pins. I'm also thinking about drilling each frame bearing for a 2mm diameter pogo pin. I'm a big fan of pogo pins as pickups. I recently discovered that Airfiix was using pogo pins as pickups in their locos in the 70's.
I thought of giving sprung pins a try in the 2-10-4, but the axles have to move from side to side so much that they still wouldn't have quite worked. Should be fine in the 0-6-0 though!
You are a gutsy “loco engineer.” I was surprised at the confidence in your voice when you first tackled this loco. I’d never in a million years have tried to disassemble it let alone tried to clean and repair it. Then, when it first stalled and you waited 2 years to pick it up again I figured it was done for and you were just going to admit defeat. Nope. You did a major electrical renovation and now it runs better than ever! What a man! What an “engineer!” 😅🎉 Congratulations and a job well done. Wish I had your skills!
But, I gotta ask…you have so many locos, from small critters to large steamers, like this 2-10-4, but your layout seems quite small, like a 4 x 8- what are your plans for all your locos? Are you just collecting them or are you planning to build a bigger layout that would utilize all your steamers and diesels? Just curious.
Thanks! Sometimes I have to set a project aside for a while and think about what I want to do with it. There have been plenty of times when I got a new tool or stock material, then look back and think “maybe this will work!”
I plan to expand the layout eventually, but I also have an extensive storage setup for everything. I also started the “Darth’s Train Shop” series for things I’m interested in working on but not keeping, so anything you see in those are put up for sale once the video’s up.
Nice job, but that sound board is horrible. BTW HO Collector magazine did an article on Bachmann’s Reading I-10 2-8-0 a couple years ago. Same basic design but same problems with the axle design. I have a couple of those so your video is helpful for making any future repairs on those pieces. Thanks, keep up the good work and happy modeling
The 4-8-4s were also built like this one and had the same issues. In fact, just about every Bachmann steam engine had the split axle problem until they finally came up with the Spectrum 2-8-0 with solid metal axles!
you can get axle replacements for both the 2-8-0 and 4-8-4 on shapeways. i did for the 2-8-0 and spectrum doodlebug (even the modern doodlebug had these poorly engineered axles) and they have been working perfectly for the last 4 years. the 2-8-0 has regular service about 2 hours a week pulling a 12 car coal train up 3% grades
Quartered it correctly on the first try with no tools to assist? That is impressive.
Bachmann and thier infinite wisdom or lack of... putting a NYC centipede coal on a OIL burning locomotive that would had the 2900 syle tender. But hey that's on them. Congrats on getting her to run again.
Really coo one day I hope I can have enough space afford to live somewhere with enough space to have a train layout again
I'd disable that awful tender sound! Quite annoying. Bachmann's usual split frame with split gears. Good repair. Cheers from eastern TN
The sound board is currently sitting in the parts bin. :)
Hi Darth Santa FE & it's is Randy and i like yours video is cool &Thanks Darth Santa FE & Friends Randy
Wow im so early love the content man you do great work
Tender is totally non-prototypical. Looks like a NYC type PT tender from behind a Niagara
the sock was there to dampen that awful sounding "chuffing" noise, good lord; best to leave that thing out
REPLACE THOSE CAPS
What an awful design. There are so many better ways to build a model steam locomotive. You deserve some credit for trying to tune this thing up.
Think about it for its time.
@@Pinecone_Railway It was actually pretty bad for its time too. Rivarossi, Bowser, Tyco, Marklin, Fleischmann, Samhongsa and others all had better running steam engines back then. My uncle bought a couple 4-8-4s in the 70s and thought they were terrible compared to his others from Penn Line and Tyco.
GOD! Kill the sound!
It's not glue it's red lock tight. I'm thinking you don't work on your own vehicles.
I figured it was some sort of thread locker. And no, I prefer to have qualified mechanics work on my car. I don’t have the garage space for that kind of work, and with all the computer controls in these newer cars (it’s an Audi), I’d rather not mess with certain things.