Fitting additional pick-ups to a 1960's Hymek.

[Potterton]

Hello All.

I have a 1960's Tri-ang Hornby Class 35 "Hymek" diesel and would like to fit additional pick-ups to the trailing bogie. Does anyone know of a suitable split axle wheel set which would fit? I was thinking of arranging the pick-ups so that they would rub against the axles rather than the backs of the wheels.

Thanks in anticipation.

[atom3624]

I think there was a similar post on here a few months ago, possibly related to a Class 37?

Might have some information which may help.

Al.

[Rana Temporia]

The later versions did exactly this, as did the 31/37s and possibly the EM2s. You might be able to pick up a second hand chassis with pick-ups and power collecting wheels off eBay and this would be the easiest way of sorting it, just add the motor bogie and solder the wires in place. Basically the trailing bogie had two wheel sets that were only insulated on one side and arranged opposite ways round. A brass pick-up rubbed on each axle and took the power back to the motor bogie. You have to make sure they are connected the correct way round or you’ll get a short circuit. I have bought quite a few non-runners in the past only to find one of the axles was in the wrong way round or someone had re-soldered the wires the wrong way round, easily fixed by swapping the axles round.

It should be an easy retro-fit to the old type as I’m sure the original had pin=point axles from day 1 unlike the 31/37/EM2 which had old type split axles.

[Potterton]

Thanks for the replies chaps.

@Rana Temporia "Basically the trailing bogie had two wheel sets that were only insulated on one side and arranged opposite ways round. A brass pick-up rubbed on each axle and took the power back to the motor bogie."

There are no pick-ups at all on the trailing bogie of my Hymek and the wheels are plastic. (It is a circa 1968 version with the ? X.3170 motor.) I was hoping to replace the axles with split metal ones with metal wheels and pick up from all four wheels, but thinking about it, it will probably be easier to get a set of two axles with wheels insulated on one side and reverse fit one so at least I'll have one additional positive and negative pick-up which will still be an improvement. On the whole the model still runs very well as it is, but occasionally stalls at slow speed on the dead frogs of earlier Hornby points.

[ColinB]

I did this to my EM2, I think I found a way of doing it with Hornby standard spare parts. Later to day I will have a look at my EM2 to see what I did. I know for the drive I used a modern class 66 bogie. I know the purists will moan at me for doing this but I had two of them, so I kept one standard and modified the other one. The old Triang EM2 had a habit of the copper parts shorting against the motor taking out my expensive DCC decoder. I also added lights at the same time. I was really pleased with the result.

[ColinB]

This how I did it on my EM2s. The right one has insulating tape to stop the wheels touching the pickups. I thing I used Hornby King Tender pickups as they were the cheapest and easy to obtain, they also had holes for the screws. The wheels are standard Hornby. I can't remember whether I got them from a pack or used the special coach lighting ones.

[Rana Temporia]

This is how Hornby did it on their later pre-ring field models

[Potterton]

@ ColinB and Rana Temporia Thank you gentlemen for your pictures.

@Rana Temporia. That's just the set up I was referring to in my last post, exactly the sort of thing I had in mind. Many thanks. blush