David-370477

Hi Everyone, My first post on the forum which is a response to very informative Peachy post on "The main A1/A3/A4 Chassis & Bogie problems & fixes. A few months ago I purchased a A3 CLASS 60078 'NIGHT HAWK' BR EARLY GREEN (DCC-SOUND) locomotive. I thought that the bogie wheel lifting and derailing issues raised by others much earlier this year would have been sorted out by now but not a bit of it. Out of the box, when the locomotive was traversing a radius 2, and, albeit to a lesser extent radius 3 curves the two bogie wheels on the inside of the curve were lifting and often after just a few minutes running all four bogie wheels would derail leading a short time later to the derailment of the whole loco. I removed the infamous piece of black tape adhering to the underside of the loco above the bogie wheels but even before I removed it was clearly not interfering with the bogie wheels movement. In short, removal of the black tape made not a jot of a difference. I checked that the bogie was bracket was not out of alignment with the locomotive and that the bogie wheel spacing was correct and all was good. I finally came to the view that the downward pressure of the bogie on the track was inadequate. I liaised with Hornby and they sent me details of how I could return the locomotive to them, whereupon they would "adjust the bogie bracket". Given that they advised that I should allow 28 days for the repair, I decided to have a go at rectifying the problem myself. To cut a long story short (apologies for this), I carried out a very crude modification to the bogie as illustrated in the attached photo. Firstly, I fashioned a 1mm thick washer from a piece of green plastic sheet and refitted the bogie to the loco (leaving the existing thin plastic washer in place). This lowered the bogie such that the spring was now under more tension. I saw a marked improvement by this mod alone but there was still a small amount of bogie wheel lifting on the curves. My second mod involved introducing a small loop of 1mm thick solder between the washer sitting on top of the spring and the the underside of the bracket in order to increase the spring pressure. I only used solder in order to allow me to quickly try out the mod without having to avoid disassembling the bogie. These two small mods have eliminated my bogie wheel lifting and derailing issues. In due course I will replace the homemade washer and solder loop with proper washers but for now I am just pleased to have a locomotive that runs properly. I hope these suggested mods may be of help to others.