Bachmann Manor Chassis Query

[Brit70053]

Earlier this year I bought a second hand Bachmann Manor Class loco 'Hinton Manor' for not much cash. My thoughts were that if the loco was a poor runner as per reputation in some posts I've read on here, I'd just give it a repaint and new identity and accept it as a display model, GWR not being my foremost modelling theme. 

             Having cleaned the basic chassis up and test run/ run it in for as long as my patience and other modelling would allow, I find my pre conceptions confirmed: It will run, but is very inconsistent, bumps and grinds its way around some curves, though can be quite smooth on straight stretches and the legendary skin of a rice pudding is safe where it started. 

             For 'one last effort' I totally stripped the split chassis down for examination and was surprised to find that the centre driving wheel axle journals had small coil springs let into holes in the casting. This resembles the arrangement on some of Hornby's basic 0 - 6 - 0 chassis, but there is no part to keep the springs 'balanced under load' as I have found with the Hornby examples I've seen. Indeed, one of the springs in the Manor chassis has been distorted where the axle rotates against it and the set up seems rather vulnerable to such damage.

           

             Can anyone tell me if this springing arrangement is 'as designed' or if it is likely to have been a DIY effort by a previous owner please ?

 

I don't know if anything short of a new chassis (won't be happening) would improve running/ haulage to an acceptable standard, I'm just curious as to whether the chassis was designed like this.

 

Many thanks in anticipation of helpful replies.

 

             Regards,

 

                            John

 

 

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

http://www.Bachmann.co.uk/pdfs/31-2000.pdf

 

Snot on the diagram linked above, and you will notice that the small springs to the motor terminals are drawn in. My guess therefore a user mod to try and improve pick up, as this degraded due to wear on the plating in the conduction path; but owners with their own models to inspect should be able to better advise.

 

If you can find a reliable way to get power to the motor (rebuild tender for pick up for example) these run very sweetly; the motor is easily the best component of these split chassis mechs. Unfortunately the consequent working of the lamentably weak polymers in the split axles and gear train will bring these to failure soon enough. There have been many attempts to improve the robustness of these mechanisms to keep the generally decent looking models going, but they all fail given enough running...

[SRman]

My Manor used to run well, once I loosened the baseplate screws slightly. I haven't tested or run this model for some years now, but it may be a candidate for conversion to DCC eventually.

[Brit70053]

Thanks for your informative reply 34theletterbetweenB&D, there is certainly no indication of these springs on the Bachmann diagram, which is what I would have expected from experience of several other split chassis models.

If it is in fact a DIY job, then the holes appear to have been drilled or machined very well, but the springs used may not have been of the most suitable material, or the distortion on one of them could just be a result of wear and tear, who knows?

I agree the motor itself is fine as was the split chassis concept, only the execution seems to have let it down in this particular model.

I did add pick ups to the outer pairs of tender wheels and getting power to the motor doesn't actually seem to be a problem in my case, its more a matter of transmission of the drive from the motor down through the gears to the driving wheels, especially on right curves.

 

Regards,

 

John

[The Johnster]

My Hinton Manor ran well too, an old Mainline loco, but like many of that design, lost quarter after a while, partly due to rough driving at shows by club members (I am no longer part of this club).  The idea of a split chassis is a good one, though it's market credibility is now largely destroyed by Mainline's failures; coupled with a coreless motor it theoretically gives absolutely free running and perfect slow control, and disposes of the need to clean or constantly adjust pickups.  I had a 43xx as well, which suffered the same fate.

 

But the Mainline product failed due to poor material choices and quality control.  The plastic, overcomplex, gear train needed to get good slow running from the high speed motor (Lima were guilty of this as well), itself the result of a limited size requirement in order to provide the cab detail and daylight beneath boilers that RTR customers were beginning to demand in the 80s, was prone to misalignment and cog splitting, and the wheels were inadequately attached to the plastic stub axles, so that movement occurred to wear the square pegs on the wheels that located in the holes in the axle ends (or was it the other way around) to ensure quartering (half D shapes would have been better, like on Airfix construction kits).  A chassis that ran well when it was new could not be relied upon to give much mileage, and many failed before their first set of carbon brushes needed replacing.  If you did get any decent mileage out of them, the axles eventually wore through to the top of the chassis blocks and the loco seized up.

 

Modern RTR practice, with (hopefully) replaceable cheap but very good can motors driving 'traditional' worm and cog drive trains and picking up through 'traditional' wiper pickups, is very good indeed, but I still think better could be done with coreless motors and split chassis, properly designed and all-metal; insulating this is probably an expensive production process and the reason it doesn't happen.  I am somewhat influenced by Chris Pemberton's split chassis masterpieces from the late 70s and 80s.

 

At least we no longer have to suffer the plastic abominations that Lima used to put beneath some not half bad body mouldings!