Saturday, January 03, 2015

Power bogie hangers

Power Bogie with fixings

With issues concerning the motor/gearbox combo in mind, I thought it might be a good idea to see how the power unit fitted in the coach body beofre going any further.

It's quite a nifty set-up. In the roof we have a pivot that takes the (considerable) weight of the body. Front and back of the power unit are curved sections inside the body which are pushed by raised horns on the power bogie. It's very like the method used by older RTR diesels - those fitted with Ringfield motors.

You'd hope all this slotted together, but no, the horns are too low. The top bits are at the same level as the curved body sections. Some plastic sheet packing raises them up a bit. Then I found that the front faces are too fat to fit within the curve - time for a coarse file to smooth them back until they went in and moved smoothly.

Once fixed, all looks OK. My railcar now rolls back and forth well enough. I haven't tried it on a curve yet, that will have to wait until I find a length of flexi track that hasn't been chopped up.

Still, there looks to be plenty of space in here so now it's time to find a motor and gearbox. Not as easy as in the past thanks to the reduction in kitbuilders and loss of companies who sell these bits over the festive period.

Power bogie fitted

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