UPDATE 3/7/17 WITH VIDEO !!!!!!!!!!! Niagara gears and drive shaft

Ok here are some pics showing the parts I used. At the top are the stock Lionel gears available from North Lima. Below them are the gears made from the items below them including the SDP gears, brass tubing 3mm ID, 4mm OD and 3mm x 12mm 316 stainless dowel pins. The latter two items from McMaster Carr. The brass sleeve was required because the 19 tooth gear came with a 4 mm center hole. The sleeve was fastened to the gear but I think I will allow the shaft to float in the sleeve.

Part numbers for the SDP gears are:

A1M2MYZ07013

A1M2MYZ07019

The Lionel gears are 5 bucks each. The SDP gears are less than 2 bucks but require work and a few more parts.

Just as a reference point a forum member had these made in the same material but at 20 times the cost.

Looking at picture its difficult to tell the difference between the Lionel gears and the SDP gears. I hope to try and determine if the current Lionel gears are still made of Nylon or if they have switched to Delrin before installing either one in my engine.

Pete

Do we know what "plastic" these gears are. What is a good non metal gear material? One thing, I thought I remembered these gears definitely had a slant to them rather than being teeth parallel to the shaft.

cjack posted:

One thing, I thought I remembered these gears definitely had a slant to them rather than being teeth parallel to the shaft.

I would think that as well, given they're meshing with a worm gear.  There has to be a slant in there to get a proper mesh I would think.

You can see from my pics above there is no slant in the Lionel gears. I think that's part of the problem. On the other hand if the top was a worm gear it would have to be attached to a spur gear next to it, complicating the gearbox and likely making it too wide to fit in the frame.

Pete

They could have simply had a slant to both gears and solve the issue.

D500 posted:

BTW, my MTH PS2 Niagara is an awful runner (surges) and, even at Factory Defaults, won't answer my DCS Remote Commander

First inclination is that the tach tape (white & black barcode) on the flywheel is either dirty or torn/smudged, or the issue may be the tach reader.  Take the shell off and check both;  If the tach tape is dirty make sure to clean it.  If it's been compromised by being torn or frayed you can either home-brew a replacement or order a set relatively cheap from MTH.  With the tach reader, make sure it didn't work loose from its bracket and make sure the distance between the optical sensor and the tach tape should be between 0.5 mm – 1.5 mm with 0.75mm being optimum.

Other suggestion, although not related to the Niagra's performance, ditch the DCS Remote Commander and get the full-blown system; it's much better and who knows; the subtle grumblings you've posted in the past regarding DCS might diminish. 

Norton posted:

You can see from my pics above there is no slant in the Lionel gears. I think that's part of the problem. On the other hand if the top was a worm gear it would have to be attached to a spur gear next to it, complicating the gearbox and likely making it too wide to fit in the frame.

Pete

Which makes me wonder if the gears from Lima were different than these in the picture. It is not obvious in your Lionel gear picture, but it may not be the best angle to see it.

It was obvious now that I think of it, they were slanted and fit the worm gear slant. I remember wondering if it mattered if I turn the gear over. I think you can see it in the Lionel parts picture of the drive wheel as well. It's slight and you almost have to use your imagination to see it, but it's there I think.

Chuck, I have not taken my engine apart yet but I am sure the original gears are still in it. I am guessing the gears in the pic Alex posted are also original. Maybe Alex can show us those gears if he hasn't tossed them in the trash yet. They look straight in the picture though.

Here is a pic from Lionel. I would think this is from a new engine.

Pete

I would like to see Lionel take a picture broad side to the gear. The slant would be more obvious if it were slanted. I think when I filled out the form for NWSL gear company I wrote that the teeth slanted to the right. I remember that it seemed like there would be some other specs...not just right or left, but how much. Maybe there is some standard for gears that mate with a worm gear.

Lionel sure makes life interesting and consuming.

All good information and thoughts guys.   It is what it is.  NWSL may have a gear set for that locomotive.  Do not dwell much on the gear box as the drive shaft is a very bad situation also.  For all of us that buy Lionel steam today, feel lucky guys, the new  Lionel now has people who do things right.   They would never let something like the Niagara happen again.

They care and know what they are doing.

Marty you may be right about NWSL but its not in their catalog yet. A few weeks ago a forum member sent them a pair of North Lima Gears. They had to make custom copies because the had not made them yet. They charged $85 per gear to make them. Since they received fresh items from North Lima they will be straight cut. When I heard the price is when I started looking for an off the shelf alternative. The pair of gears I found at SDP were the only ones that had the same size and profile as the North Lima gears but came in Delrin which is superior to nylon at least if not metal. 

I posted the specs above to give others a chance to continue the search and maybe find similar gears in metal if they wish. If someone wants to have them custom cut in metal they could do that as well using those same specs. 

Pete

So what is the material made of from SDP and how do you know it will last?  Where is that 3-D printer when you need it!  G

I just tuned in.  I am going to blow it, because I only read the first eight posts.

First comment - some plastic gears are better than others.  But brass is the world's worst material for gears, period.  You need a good grade of bronze.  Or Celcon Acetyl, aged and machined.

I am not well versed in Lionel, but from the looks of things, a nice NWSL Mod 0.6 non tower gearbox would cure your problems.  It is not trivial to install - you need to pull the geared driver, and maybe knurl it.

Joe Foehrkolb is an expert in these matters, and can probably fix it for a price.  Last time I checked, the gearbox alone was over fifty bucks, and the labor would be of the order of four hours or so.

I sincerely hope I have added something, and not repeated one of the posts I did not read.

GGG posted:

So what is the material made of from SDP and how do you know it will last?  Where is that 3-D printer when you need it!  G

G, the SDP gear is Delrin, the generic name is acetal. As Bob2 noted Delrin is much preferred over nylon. I don't know how long it will last which is one reason I would rather not go into into the gear business but I intend to replace the gears in my engine to try and find out.

As for 3D printers I am not sure a printed gear would be stronger than one machined from solid material.

Replacing the gearbox has not been ruled out.

Pete

I don't have any of these engines but, you would think, that the current management would have done more to protect their name and reputation.  I guess it is to much to ask.

Alex,

This may be a longshot but try McMaster Carr. They are an industrial supplier that carries a wide variety of items. You should be able to find the catalog on the internet but if you cannot, I can give you one.

Alan Graziano

Hi everyone,

Here's a few photos of the large gear, this is as close as I can get before the picture goes out of focus. 

Also I ask please let's stay on the subject of the gear issue only. It's a  informative thread and I would like it to remain that way  

Thanks very much,

Alex 

Norton posted:

GGG posted:

So what is the material made of from SDP and how do you know it will last?  Where is that 3-D printer when you need it!  G

G, the SDP gear is Delrin, the generic name is acetal. As Bob2 noted Delrin is much preferred over nylon. I don't know how long it will last which is one reason I would rather not go into into the gear business but I intend to replace the gears in my engine to try and find out.

As for 3D printers I am not sure a printed gear would be stronger than one machined from solid material.

Replacing the gearbox has not been ruled out.

 

Pete

Pete, They are making replacement parts on nuclear aircraft carriers with 3D printers.  Not everything, but a model train gear, with the right material.  Absolutely.

Delrin is good.  Hard to believe nylon was allowed on the first go.   G

Well that gear has a pitch, which would make sense.  Worm drive, and Axle gear.  So it would make sense the smaller gear had a pitch too.  G

Things are many times better today with Lionel products.   I never purchased any of those club situations.  I often wonder why that was.  I have worked on many of those club locomotives.  I recently dumped the Niagara I had and was very clear to the new owned what may happen.   I received it not running and was able to make the selling price good.  

People will still buy anything with the Lionel name on it.   The locomotives are good looking.  

I buy MTH and recent Lionel with modern Legacy.  Everyone is making great trains today.  We are living at a great time to be in the hobby.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL FORUM MEMBERS.

MARTY

Alex, The original gear looks like there is a brass insert around the shaft while the North Lima Gear does not. The shaft is embedded right in the plastic. I am wondering if North Lima is sourcing their replacements from somewhere else? I know when I tried to order gears 8 months ago they were out of stock. Now they are available again. Obviously not cannibalized from new engines which is typically Lionel's practice. Different construction might also indicate different material being used. I will try emailing once again and if no reply then maybe someone here at work can determine what the material of these new gears are.

New gear in upper right:

Original Lionel Gear:

Pete

Pete,

Yes i see exactly what you're talking about. We might be on to something here, reason why i say this is because the old gear is very hard to spin while holding the the shaft. There seems to be some sort of bind with these old gears, I think being the new Lima gears having the shaft embedded right into the gear just might be the solution.

I Also fully agree with Marty, Lionel is making many superior products and they are hitting home run after home run. My roster is filling up with a lot of new Legacy engines, and it will continue to do so.

Thanks,

Alex

The gears out of the gear box have a brass shim washer on both sides of the shaft. That comes off. There were roughly two of them on each side of the gear on the one I took apart.

I saved the shim washers and put them on the new gears from Lima.

Good to know Chuck. I guess I have to bite the bullet and start taking mine apart. I could machine replacements wider than the originals and eliminate the shims which should give a little more strength to the teeth even if the contact area with the worm stays the same.

Pete

Pete

Thank for doing all the leg work on this and sharing. I can't wait for Alex to get my one unit repaired. I am going to have him upgrade / replace out the old gears, etc. 

Thanks Alex to you and the OGR Form folks that know these gear boxes inside an out. Lots of leg work here from very knowledgeable folks. 

All have a safe, prosperous New Year fully of happiness and joy. 

Again, thanks for the information, this time on the Niagara CCll engines.  I have already replaced the u-joints in mine, interesting to find out about the problematic gearbox internals.  I had a similar problem with broken teeth on the drive gear for a Third rail SP cab forward from the late 90's.  They, Sunset Models, sent me brass gears to use in the replacement I did.  Makes me wonder why any manufacturer may continue the use of nylon for gears.  I know car manufacturers did so to reduce the noise in timing gears, changed quite a few due to this over the years.  But, I do not believe it would be a noise issue for gearboxes in any model steam engines from any manufacturer.

Again, many thanks for the information input..... Happy New Year to all.  God bless......

Jesse

Pete,

If you have a telephone number, I would gladly make a call to them. I would just need the specifics so I can hold an intelligent conversation with them. I am off on Monday and would gladly invest the time.

PSU1980 posted:

Pete,

If you have a telephone number, I would gladly make a call to them. I would just need the specifics so I can hold an intelligent conversation with them. I am off on Monday and would gladly invest the time.

 

The number for North Lima is  330-406-2811. The part numbers for the gears are 6208069506 (large gear) and 6208069507 (Small Gear). I have sent them a message asking what the material of these gears might be. Be aware its not easy to get a reply either by phone or email but you might get lucky.

I just had a conversation with one of the chemists here at work. He said he might be able to make a determination but will need a sample to be sure. A reply from North Lima one way or the other would simplify matters for sure.

Pete

Norton posted:

Good to know Chuck. I guess I have to bite the bullet and start taking mine apart. I could machine replacements wider than the originals and eliminate the shims which should give a little more strength to the teeth even if the contact area with the worm stays the same.

Pete

Maybe, but he shims are really thin and I thought they provide a bearing surface against the case to a good purpose. So the gears would not be more than say 40 thousands thicker and the gear might rub on the case instead of the washer shim.

They, Sunset Models, sent me brass gears to use in the replacement I did. Makes me wonder why any manufacturer may continue the use of nylon for gears. 

Yes - Sunset for a while was using brass axle gears.  Mort and I had a conversation about that, and they changed to bronze.  If you have a brass Sunset axle gear, it will last about an hour.

Yes, Nylon is a lousy gear material.  Even Bakelite is better.  The Celcon is called an "engineering plastic".  It must be aged before being cut, or it will split on the axle.  That may be why a printed gear won't work, although I am guessing that the printed parts have fairly low strength compared to cut parts, when done on a home printer.

The San Diego Museum has an ancient 4-4-0 with an early NWSL gearbox. We have gone through two sets of worm bearings (converted it to ball bearings) and four motors, and the original Celcon axle gear is still working!  I am not wild about plastics, but NWSL knew what they were doing.

All gears have "pitch" (which essentially describes the number of teeth on a gear -- "circular" pitch on a worm, i.e. distance between teeth measured along the length of worm itself; "diametral" or other nomenclature for spur of worm gears). The teeth of the worm gear should be "angled" with respect to the gear's axis so that they mesh correctly with the worm.  There is much more to it than this. You can read a technical discussion on the Boston Gear website if you Google the company (it's in an online publication entitled "gearology").

Oops, a typo: should have written "for spur or worm gears." It's good to know that Sunset has gone over to bronze worm gears.

Norton posted:

Good to know Chuck. I guess I have to bite the bullet and start taking mine apart. I could machine replacements wider than the originals and eliminate the shims which should give a little more strength to the teeth even if the contact area with the worm stays the same.

Pete

I think you want the shim as the bearing and wear surface.  Not the entire gear face.  G

Jesse, we all cursed them for the plastic timing (cam) gears.  I have seen Niagara guys do the same.

Sent a set of stock Lionel gears to NWSL to have made out of some sort of superior plastic. Just got an email from them stating that the gears were "too difficult" to make. Now I have to find someone else who can make the gears. I will find a solution to this Niagara gear problem.

Guys, what are your thoughts of Lionel maybe using the same gear box configuration with good gears on the Northern locomotives made today?  I am talking the Niagara gearbox design on say an 844 or ATSFE   3751 Northern.   I will call Big Mike and get his thoughts on this.

Marty,

I am up for anything that improves the performance. I really like this engine, have 2, so I would have them upgraded. Not being an engineer or fully understanding what it would take to do that - or even of possible - If it can be done, I am in as long as were talking a reasonable price.

I am in.

Duke,

Thanks for the effort. I am 100% sure that this team can figure it out

dukeofnuke posted:

Sent a set of stock Lionel gears to NWSL to have made out of some sort of superior plastic. Just got an email from them stating that the gears were "too difficult" to make. Now I have to find someone else who can make the gears. I will find a solution to this Niagara gear problem.

How could those gears be too difficult to make for a company like that?  Not cost effect I can buy.  G