Armchair Modeller wrote:I wasn't really happy with the floppy arm arrangement for the front axle - plus the fact that the motor intrudes into the cab. As you know, I decided in the end there must be a better way, but its a low priority at the moment.
I will be very interested to see how you sort things out.
On the floppy front axle swinging arm I bent up some waste etch and soldered in place which keeps the arms parallel to the frame.
arm-retainer.jpg
However once the wheels were pressed home with the turned spacers it was not that necessary, anyway, belt and braces.
inner-chassis.jpg
The slight twist in the frames have been rectified.....
In the case of the B to B gauge I had overlooked the fact of the final drive gear and was only able to get half a millimetre of the gauge into one point. I used the GW wheel press hoping that the wheels pressed home parallel, one axle was perfect, the second axle shows signs of a very slight wobble, whether this will affect the running will be seen later.
I then turned to the cab and bonnet. I left out the grill and bonnet side overlays in order to get the soldering iron/RSU into the inside to solder to the base. The instructions say that the assembly should be built with the base screwed to the outer frames, greased, then soldered. Had a go but Vaseline just got everywhere where it was not wanted! So made a jig to hold the base out of MDF, keeping the 6 screws and their nuts in place then prodded away with the RSU to solder the cab and bonnet to its base.
cab-bonnet.jpg
So far so good. Trial fit of inner frames with motor.........surgery required......quite an amount of metal had to be removed from the front cab and rear bonnet former.
motor-clearance.jpg
Other things I have to accommodate are the Dingham couplings which require some clearance around their slot. The outer frames and cab/bonnet base had to be hacked into.
So, slowly moving forward. Grill and bonnet side etches are now fitted and now adding weight to the front within the bonnet and rear within the cab area. This is meant to have DCC fitted and the only place for a chip is within the cab area. My intention is to disguise the intrusion of the motor and DCC chip by painting them matt black and hopefully with the addition of glazing the illusion will be completed......me thinks I can live with that.
In the meantime and jumping ahead, no etched lamp brackets but have fabricated my own. Nuff for today.......as LBSC would say........
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