enginear joe Posted March 14, 2014 Author Share Posted March 14, 2014 Maintenance is key! A dry axle or bearing will wear out fast. Oiling of the USA and Aristo axles because of their design is key to keeping them in good order. I think the biggest factor for me is that I ran for years inside only! (no dirt). I also use several engines to pull my cars. I never overload them with too long a train to pull. I try to pull the cars by hand sometimes to gauge how many engines to use. If you've ever tried to pull fifty or more cars by hand, you'd never ask your engine to do it alone again! I like to use a pusher on the back to take the pressure off the couplers too. That USA SD40-2 does not pull what it should since the tires were removed. The SD70MACs do much better. I try and keep the long trains on the MTH dash 8s. I know they can take it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted March 16, 2014 Share Posted March 16, 2014 Here's a pic of wore out Aristo Dash-9 gear & axles. The small grooves are from the little ball bearings that pick the power from the wheels and the bigger grooves are where the axle bearings ride. Both bearings & balls are hard steel but the axles are made of brass...no wonder why it all wears out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 I don't think any of the old USA design, LGB design, Aristo design, etc.. was 'stupid'. They are natural progressions based on available engineering, materials, and resources (money). Look at the history: Narrow gauge = short trains . As things evolved, we, the users, demanded standard gauge models, and then we demanded they haul prototypical length trains. I am as guilty as anyone, but the toy train moved in the direction of model, while still being an electric train, there's a lag. And I believe the manufacturers chose to spend more money on the details of the model than what was going to move the model. Let's forgive them for that motivation and move on. I do as USA Trains uses all metal gears in the Hudson, GG1 & Big Boy. The first 2 engines came out way before the SD70's but USA stuck with using plastic gears. Natural progression of design?? I don't see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enginear joe Posted May 10, 2016 Author Share Posted May 10, 2016 Well it came back to haunt me. I put all new gears in 1 USA sd70mac last season. It only ran once. This season it's running slow. I pulled it apart and a shafts is not seated correctly. It ate another idler and flywheel rubbed the stripes off and confused the board. Please MTH, make more modern diesels. I will buy them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gnm109 Posted May 10, 2016 Share Posted May 10, 2016 This thread is a couple of months old but I just thought I would add my experiences with USA Trains G Scale Locomotives. About 12 years ago, I bought a USA Trains GP7/9 Union Pacific a a local hobby store on sale. It was new in the original box so I wasn't too concerned. When got it home and ran it, however, the wheels were wobbling. I took it back to the store and showed them but they offered no help since it was a sale item with no returns. (I haven't bought anything from them since). So I decided to repair the wheel units myself. When I removed the covers from the engine blocks, I saw that there were cracks on the worm gear units on both engine blocks ( 8 places). I used my lathe to make 8 sleeves out of some aluminum rod stock that I had. I bored the ID of the sleeves the exact size of the OD of the worm units so that I would have a tight press fit. Once I pressed the sleeves on and then pressed the wheels back in, they ran perfectly straight. I also checked them for gauge and they were good. As I mentioned, that was some 12 years ago and the engine has since had many hours on my layout which goes around a 20' X 24' room on the second floor of my barn workshop. Just last month I purchased the USA Trains EMD F3 A & B units in Boston & Main colors new in the boxes. Of course, the first thing that I did with these units was to check the worms for cracks, which there were none. I will wait and see if I need to sleeve these worms at some point. Right now, I figure if they aren't broken I won't fix them. LOL. I still think very highly of USA Trains due to the terrific detail. This issue with the wheels is really not a difficult fix and could even be done with brass tubing as I've seen others do. Happy Railroading! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enginear joe Posted June 2, 2016 Author Share Posted June 2, 2016 Hmmm, just saw this listed for sale. "THIS SD 70 MAC IS OFF MY PERSONAL RAILROAD AND IS IN NEED OF REPAIR. IT WAS DOUBLE HEADED AND THE FIRST LOCO DERAILED AND LOCKED AGAINST A ROCK AND THIS ONE STRIPPED ALL ITS IDLER GEARS PUSHING AGAINST IT. I HAVE REBUILT THE MOTOR BLOCK ONCE AND DO NOT WANT TO BOTHER WITH IT A SECOND TIME. ....." I'm not alone.... Maybe NWSL will produce upgrade gears for these??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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