Friends,
I don't know how many of you folks have some of the original Alco
Models models of Alcos--(trying saying that 3 times!), but as several
have found out, there is trouble in River City. When those units
arrived we were in Heaven, finally a brass diesel that wasn't a crude
kit! However, one of our local members, Bill Green who had two
different styles painted for the ATSF noticed problems several years
ago. He noticed the truck/gearbox castings were starting to distort
eventually jamming the whole mechanism.
I had been quite pleased with mine and not seeing such a problem.
I remotored both of mine with a larger can motor with flywheel and the
performance improved. The last time I lubed the unit, I had a problem
with a mounting lug that holds the brass truck side frames to the
gearbox--part of it broke off. A washer and a little longer screw put
the unit back on the rails till now.
In a recent conversation and visits with Jack Troxell, who owns
three units, confirmed that none of his worked anymore. I went and
tore into my a RS-3 that was running a little rough. We have confirmed
that all the zamac gearboxes are swelling around the drive axles.
Additionally, Jack and I have both lost several mounting lugs
completely. Now Jack, who owns a milling machine, lathe and all the
knowledge to fix this sort of thing is dealing with his units. I made a
new mounting lug to get the side frames back in position and a few
passes with a rat-tail file opened the axle holes. I hopefully, will
check out my second unit (one of my favorites, a Milwaukee RSD-5)
shortly. It seems readily apparent that these all will sidelined to the
scrap line as the metal continues to distort, swell and eventually crumble.
This brings about a question we might want to consider. Would it
be productive to try and have new drive units made for these? Or has
somebody solved this problem by using a Railmaster, SHS or AM drive and
just mated them to the body shell!
Bob Werre
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