ColinB

This is the conversion I did on my Hornby Seagull:

Funny that, I have converted about 4 of my A4 tender driven locos to to the new Railroad loco drive. My A4s were mainly 80s to 90s ones where the body clipped to the chassis using the cylinder block. To do the conversion you have to machine the plastic away from under the cab, so that the single locating lag will fit (earlier ones had two small ones). Then you make up a steel plate to go over this, which you attach to the body using the self tapping screws in the holes in front of of the cab. Next you build up a locating tab at the front of the loco using plasticard and liquid weld. I then drilled a hole in it to take a heat insert able captive nut to attach the front of the body. If you want more info I will supply some photos.

As the two other contributors have stated, on my ones I had issues with the traction tyres slipping and the brass gear slipping on the main shaft. On one loco I had a problem where a small piece of gravel got stuck in the gear teeth on the wheel. The other thing to check is that the loco moves freely.

This is not so surprising. If you take a modern Hornby loco at £200, a lot of people have in excess of a hundred locos, so that is £20,000. A lot of the public just don't realise how much this stuff costs. If you were to buy a new Hornby Dublo City of Leicester loco, add a decent sound decoder and we are talking £400. Even at half price that is £200.

I recently sold a load of my old Hornby ringfield based locos from the 80's. I run DCC so I tend to like the newer models. I advertised them on EBay, about 3 at a time. Don't try and sell them all at once because generally I think you will get less, as Buyers might be spoilt for choice. As with any auction as someone said earlier desirability is important. My Hornby old class 37s and 47s went for a lot more than I thought they would. It seems these locos are always desirable. If it is a tender based loco then I set a starting price of about £25.00 and let the auction do the rest. If you think the item is worth more then raise your selling price as if only gets last minute bids (seems to happen a lot with model locos) then you might only get one bid. Some of the locos I sold were mint, but they fetched less than others that weren't so good. There again that is what happens at auctions, just watch "Bangers and Cash" on the Yesterday channel. As someone said, look around EBay at the prices, there are some Dealers that have silly prices for old locos, hoping somebody doesn't know their true price. Over all though, I got a reasonable return selling them this way, so I was happy. Lastly, when you list them in the hidden menus there is an "accept offers" tick box, that EBay switches on by default. I generally untick it as all I got was offers way below my starting bid, why people would think you would, says something about them (probably Dealers after an easy profit).

This post is only for information, in case anyone else has the same issues. I recently purchased a Hornby Q1, the later BR model with the DCC socket in the tender, it was new so obviously stored for a while. I run DCC so I needed to open the tender to get access to the DCC socket. I took out the two screws at the back of the tender, but would the top pull away, no. So I went around the base with a thin knife in case something has got stuck. Anyway in the end I took the base plate off and there in front of you at the front of the tender you can see the locating tabs. I gently levered the back a little just to free them off (these are plastic so easily broken) and "hey presto" it comes apart. I don't what causes these things to stick, I have had it happen with locaters on the front and back of tenders, but never this bad. So if your Q1 tender won't come apart remove the base plate. I noticed on my other Q1 same issue, but on that one the DCC socket is in the loco, so no need to take it apart.

I spent ages getting the ones on mine to work properly it was virtually all the things in atom3624's list. On one it turned out to be the cylinder block, another the wheels where slightly buckled, made worse by me adding extra pickups. Eventually I got them working property, only to find much later, by use of bits of modelling plastic sheet and a new rear steel bracket, I could get a modern Railroad chassis to fit. Much better solution.

I know the issues, my sister in law lives in Beccles. Once when I visited her I needed to pick up something from Norwich, not far away from Beccles, but it took me ages to get there. Single track roads with lots of stoppages.

I get mine from Bure Valley, not only are they cheaper but I am donating to keeping their railway running. I still don't think anyone has stocks of Coronation ones. Actually 96RAF they can't be too far from where you live.

If it is a ringfield motor I would recommend using the Zimo decoder, I found these work quite well with the ringfield. No, I don't have shares in Zimo, I tried quite a few of them (Gaugemaster, DCC Concepts, Hattons) and found Zimo to be the best and most reliable. Their normal current limit is about 0.8 amps, although I think the maximum is a bit more which should be enough for a Ringfield. I had them running in all my Ringfield based locos. If it is the dual worm drive, Zimo do a 2 amp version, there is also someone on EBay that sells a 2 amp variable limit one. The only issue I had with the dual worm drive, is though conversion to DCC is quite easy, it is quite easy for a short to occur between the pickups and motor wires, taking out the decoder. It did that to mine on my EM2. In the end with the EM2, there was a guy on EBay that converted the bogie to take a modern class 66 motor, so I paid him to convert it. With my second one, I saw what he did and did the conversion myself. For DCC operation I would recommend picking up the power from as many wheels as possible.

As I said in a previous post Derails and Bure Valley definitely test their models.

It depends on the item, yes you are right Supermarkets don't open things up and test them, but from watching the odd program it does appear that they have quality departments. With a new car the Dealer is required to do a number of checks, so it is not that unusual. At the end of the day as a Retailer you want a happy customer, so anything you can do to improve that relationship is good for business. The only exception to this is where you are buying something heavily discounted, where any sensible person appreciates that there might be risks. I have got to admit, I have bought many brand new locos over the past year off Hornby and they have all been perfect except for the A2s where there were a number of issues. None of the issues stopped the loco running but things like the top seam showing and a smoke deflector put on wrong. After watching "Sams Video" I came to the conclusion that they were all like that. To give Hornby credit the subsequent releases of the A2 were much better. As to TTS decoders we all know that there are many issues with them, as is documented on this site, so I can understand why a loco fitted with one could have issues.

I have already said, Bure Valley check their locos, as do TMC and Derails. Given that the price is virtually the same where ever you buy the loco, perhaps people should buy from those Retailers that they know test them. Derails are especially good. In my case a lot of the time I buy locos that are heavily discounted because they are last years (or older) stock, so in those cases I accept that there may be issues. Having said that, the only major issue I have had is a 8 pin DCC socket not working properly, I replaced it and got Hornby to send me a replacement. On my King the motor disengaged itself but that was easily fixed.

I must admit generally a wiring fault blows up the decoder. For a loco to run on DC and not DCC would tend to indicate there is a fault with the wiring to pins 1,4,5 and 8. Usually if it runs on DC and has issues on DCC it tends to indicate pin 1 is connected to either pins 8 or 4. Similarly pin 5 may be connected to pins 8 or 4. As I say usually if this is the case, the decoder gets damaged. Have you checked that when the decoder is fitted into another loco it still runs backwards and forwards? Basically with nothing in the 8 pin decoder socket, there should be no resistance between all pins except pins 1 and 5, which should measure motor impedance (anything up to 100 ohms). The only other issue I have had is if the decoder has not got enough current drive for the motor, but this is a relatively new loco, so that shouldn't be an issue. What you need to do is do the resistance measurement check between pins and then put in a cheap decoder (in case it blows up) to see if it works.

Although if you change CV29 to a 1, the loco will run on DC, I have found that it doesn't run quite as well as if it didn't have a DCC decoder fitted. I did a test with one of my locos by running it with and without a Hattons decoder. With the decoder fitted it needed a higher DC voltage to get it moving. It could be something to do with the PWM out of my Hornby controller but I don't have a true DC source to test any further.

You didn't say whether they were new or second hand, but looking at your post I again I assume they are new. I buy lots of new locos and I must admit they have all been perfect. Occasionally the separately fitted parts fall off and with Dapol locos for some reason one buffer always seems to fall off. Now with second hand that is a different story, sometimes the loco is perfect, obviously very rarely run, but some you think "didn't you notice that". Some secondhand Dealers just buy stuff in and resell it without checking it much. If you look at some of the listings on EBay quite often the valve gear is fitted wrong, but obviously the Seller doesn't realise as they have never seen one with it fitted properly. I do know Bure Valley tests all the locos they send out, as they phoned me up once to cancel the order as there was a fault when they tested it and it was the last one. I buy a lot from them, not only do they test them but I know my money is going to a good cause.

The only thing I can suggest is to do what I do. See if Hornby have renamed the part on later or earlier versions (surprisingly they do this) or see if there is any other loco that has the same distance between wheels and use those conrods. I recently couldn't get any valve gear for my Britannia, surprisingly the tender driven one fitted with a bit of modification (cutting away a bit of it). Similarly I wanted con rods for a unrebuilt West Country and found that the rebuilt ones fitted. There seems to be a need for a webpage where it cross references parts of Hornby that will fit other models. Seeing as Hornby have given up on spare parts, it would of great use. Sadly I find a lot of the parts Dealers are sadly lacking in this area.

I would agree with you on this one. I must admit I didn't look at the date, I just assumed the latest post was on the same issue. Thankfully I didn't spend much time on figuring out the answer to the display issue, I have used a lot of those displays, so not a problem. Usually I look at the date but there were so many entries that I just read the text. I have never used them but I suspect someone like Lendons is a better bet for fixing old Elite controllers. I suspect either he, or he knows someone that is in to electronics (retired or young), so they are going to spend more time trying fixing the issue probably for not much money.

I did wonder about that, seeing as chokes are normally in series in a circuit, so I did find it hard to believe it is causing a short circuit.

Ok, I haven't read all the responses, so if I repeat something, my apologies. First one I read was Hornby said it was a Display Buffer error, that is absolute rubbish, the display looks to be similar to the ones I have used in the past. Generally you define a display buffer in software, so unless the micro has died I doubt it is that. So I suspect 96RAF is right probably an error with the display itself. The other error is the inductor going short circuit, have you tried removing the inductor to see if the short disappears and if the unit starts working.

When I converted my ringfields I used the £20 Zimo decoder. I have not really studied the 8F but on many of mine I found the 5 pole Henry chassis that Peters Spares sells, fitted my Duchess and A4s with a bit of modification. In the end though I found that early Hornby bodies fit later Hornby chassis generally, so I eventually converted them to the latest Hornby Railrod specification.

I suppose before you send it back, check to see if there is a capacitor across the motor, it may be this causing the issue. If it has one remove it.

Have you tried unscrewing the dawbar from the tender and turning it round, I found sometimes one of the holes in the drawbar is bigger than the other.

I have bought several of the "Railroad" tenders most seem to have the rectangular hole in the tender base for the socket but no pickups and no socket. I did buy one loco with them already fitted but I think it depends on what price Hornby is making the model to. So on many they don't have the pickups. I think on some of the sound Tornados they have the sound decoder in the tender and the 4 way connection to the loco, but still no pickups. Sam did a review on the latest "Railroad" Mallard, which shares the same tender, and he said the same. As I said in an earlier post you just buy the cheapest tender bottom with pickups (about £2.50+) and swap them over.

I get my TTS sound decoders from Bure Valley Models, being a preserved railway trust it gets away with a lot more. There again I fit them myself. Hornby have to be very careful at about £30, I will put up with them having a reliability issue, at £40 they begin to not look as such a good option. I know Hornby has a no quibble guarantee for the first year, but after that you are on your own. Both Zimo and Loksound do a replacement for £30 if you need a replacement. When you realise you are getting a new £100 decoder for £30 then it looks a better bet, but in reality the more expensive decoders fail less. Give Hornby a couple of years when demand falls and it will return to normal, they "try it on" every so often.