Traction tyres and HST Class 43

[mikejj101]

I have been updating a couple of old HST Class 43 locos. One is a Lima and the other a Hornby. Using CD motor kits from a certain gent in Scotland and Zimo decoders all has gone well with the updates apart from the traction tyres on the Hornby loco. The tyres were loose on the wheels so I purchased new ones from Peters spares. After fitting them the loco runs quite well but appears to suffer from wheel spin. The tyres are really tight on the wheels but It’s almost as though there’s not enough weight in the loco to drive it along. I’m wondering if anyone else has had this issue on the 43.

[96RAF]

Mine sits in the naughty cabinet. I initially converted it to solid wheels using dummy bogie wheels as they have gears same as the power bogie wheels, and added the later dummy bogie pickups, then I converted to a DVD motor. It suffered from poor traction in three car setup when it met my moderate gradients (2%) so it was withdrawn from service.

Edit 18 July - mine has twin Valenta TTS fitted and as stated later extra pickups can create extra drag possibly negating the improvements.

[ColinB]

Yes, I had that issue, I worked it out that there isn't enough weight on the back bogie. What I did eventually is replace the weight with a Hornby weight that was twice as high. I think I got it from Peters Spares.

[Hipwell]

Converted my old HST to a CD motor using the original tyres, must be 70s or 80s and it pulls 3 mk3s and a dummy car no problem around my 2nd radius curves.

I did add some wheel balancing weights onto the body though, some in the roof and some on the bogies.

Maybe add a bit more weight?

[mikejj101]

Thanks for the responses everyone. I have attempted to add more weight to the rear end of the tractor unit but with very little success. I’m probably going to retire it to the display case and put the decoder to better use. Ah well, it was a good idea - I don’t think.

[Going Spare]

Have you checked that the non-powered wheelsets are free-running (on the power car and the rest of the train).

[ColinB]

I agree its not brilliant, Going Spare is right, I did find with mine the dummy car was putting a lot of drag on the train. Once I did that and with the extra weight in the driving car it did actually work quite well, I also put the latest 5 pole motor in it and added TTS sound. Check the pickups if you have them on the dummy car.