Hi everyone,

 New to the forum and G scale and so far having a blast. I model Z scale for the past 10-15 years so loving the big scale? I bought a brand new MTH challenger last week

and when I got it all the traction tires have liquefied. they left big black puddles on the track I set it on. I know this has been on the shelf for a very long time but still 

surprised how bad it is. Anyhoo no time like the present to dig into it and put in the new proto 3.o board. While I have it apart any other suggestions to up grade? Also

does anyone know what part number for the tires when I looked it said they don't have a exploded view and gave me a choice of 6-7 different ones. thanks in advance

for any ideas or advice. I'll keep searching forums for ideas.

 

  Thanks, Dave 

Hi Dave welcome.

 

On the traction tires, you got one that had a bad batch of rubber so you will just need to clean the drivers up with alcohol and install the new ones.   Have to remember that if the engine is probably 13 years old so the tires with bad compound have had a long time to deteriorate.  In contrast, my original first run challenger still has its original tires so they will last a long time if they have the right compound. I keep these tires and wide variety of other MTH One gauge/O gauge parts in-stock so just send me an email.

 

As far as other modifications, for the Challenger I recommend adding weight and a front suspension to eliminate the front driver set from slipping under load:  http://www.rayman4449.com/MTH_Challenger_mods.htm#Reduce_front_driver_wheel_slippage

 

Enjoy

 

 

 

 

Hi Ray,

 Was going to call you tomorrow to ask and also order an up graded speaker. working on the tear down right now and will add the weight up in front under the porch. I'll send an e mail with my requests to make it official.

By the way don't use meth on rubber it will soften it and disolve it. I found out with live steam as once (a long long time ago), i used a rubber tube for the meth! It is possible that steam oil has a bad effect on the rubber on traction tyres. but all my other MTH engines don't have any issue with the rubber tyres.

Hi,  new to this forum. I too had problems with my traction tires melting. I've bought 3 used MTH Hudsons and they all had melted tires. Even the spare sets were bad. What a mess to clean ! 

I had never experienced this before, with all the MTH engines I've bought over the years.

 

Nick 

Same issue as I described above and cleans up easily with rubbing alcohol.  Of all the engines I have bought for my personal collection none have had that problem.  Only some that had bad batch of rubber.

I had that problem years ago. Not since.

I'm wondering if there's an interaction with the bubble wrap?

I didn't have many melted tires. I just opened an engine I had packed for shipment and now the tires are melted. They appeared fine before this. They are melted mostly on the bottom where it contacted the bubble wrap.

I think I'll start putting paper towels under the wheels just as a precaution.

Not related to bubble wrap. The tires didnt go from 100% ok to melted in days it was just something not noticed is all. The rubber compound on that batch of tires was all an issue. There was one point a few years ago that tires I ordered from parts department started to degrade like this in the bag and had to warranty... and I clearly remember the rubber on those tires never seemed right when I got them. It is a really odd thing for sure!

Yep, you're right.

I just scraped off all the tires. The rest of each was very soft. The bottoms were liquid like. Maybe gravity did something to them like squish them?

What a mess. A dozen ear swabs, paper towels, alcohol, and a screwdriver scraping off the mass.

Hmmm, now the front engine engineer's side eccentric crank is stuck. I took off the rear engine's crank without issue so something else is happening.

took some brute force but it came off. 2 were a bugger. 2 came off without issue. Good tip about the alcohol.