Restoring my Bachmann-Shay #5 ?!

While the weather was very “april style” today, I couldn’t run my Accucraft Shay in the garde. Therefore I spend some thoughts on my old Bachmann Shay #5. Since I digged out another “dinosaur” yesterday (more about this next week), I was considering if it would be possible to bring Shay #5 back into service…

The problem on this loco is the typical “broken gears” issue. The gears on the axles were split and didn’t submit the motor power to the wheels. Therefore the loco was powered by one single axle, since 3 gears were broken. Not a good hauler. I never planed to get this loco back into service before, so I removed all the batteries and RC stuff and took her on display in the living room together with my other Shays.

Well, what should I’ve to do in case I would like to get the loco running again? First of all I had to repair or replace the broken gears.

The solution was pretty easy and took just an hour. The gears have a small hub on each side with 9mm diameter and approx 2mm deep. I took some brass to the lathe and made a pipe with 12mm outer diameter and an 8.8 bore. I chamfer the front and cut 8 2mm thick rings from the pipe.

With the chamfer ahead, I pressed those rings on to the hub, one on each side of the gear. The brass rings clamps the splited gear together and will give them again a strong fit on the axles. I used my milling machine (you may also use a drill press) to take the wheelsets down and to reassemble them after the upgrade.

Now the drive mechanism of the loco is fully working again. Now I need some RC electronics (ordered at my dads workshop) and new batteries to get her back into service…