Anybody regear a Williams 2R Challenger?

I agree John, normally. I took the sensor and pushed it in until it read the stripes correctly. I did not measure it. When I got it to read the stripes at  around 30 MPH, I locked it there as best as I could. It's not precision here by any means of the imagination. I don't have the tooling, or the patience.

If it works, I'm happy. I think this particular sensor is weak. We can argue the merits of that statement all you desire. It seems to need to be closer than others I've installed. I have put in at least around 30 now. I know that's not a big number by your standards. It is enough for me to know when something is different.

Some tachs seem stronger and I can slap them in and they work. Maybe this flywheel wobbles too much to get precise readings?

Seems like the least of my issues as I'm back inside the drive for the umpteenth time again. I'll get it right by accident when I get the patience to keep at it. Right now, I need to walk away!

I've had a number of bad sensors, so it's entirely possible that you have a bad one, no argument there.  When and if you get a good one, you know what distance to set it to!

Can't say about a wobbly flywheel, but that would certainly affect the sensor readings if it were happening.

Ok here's where I quit for today. Near the end, I turned the headlight off for anyone who notices it. It was actually blinding me while watching it run. I'll have to see if the chuff's skipping out is from this bad sensor? or a drive issue?

I'll also have to move the LED headlight to a different source I guess.

Not done yet. I guess I'm getting closer?

Did you replace the tach sensor?

I really should. In the videos, it's just moved way inward to get a better read. I messed with this engine for what seems like weeks now. I try and keep it fun or it turns into real boring work. Sometimes I walk away from a project and that allows me time to think of better things to try.

I may also need to move my LED headlight source to the smoke fan + power instead of the smoke + power?

Why isn't the headlight on the headlight circuit?

I have it fed power from the smoke heater +. It dims when the smoke is on. I need to move it. It's just an LED with resistor.

running smoother now! Thanks to Pat at Harmon shops.

and sound on

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Why isn't the headlight on the headlight circuit?

I have to search and find out what it's connected to. I pressed headlight off and it went off? So why is it pulsing so bad?

Just get a Pittman motor, and your problems will be solved.

@harley rider posted:

Just get a Pittman motor, and your problems will be solved.

We wished it was that easy on this particular model,…..we already tried a Pittman,…it did not like it one bit,….the gearing is to the moon on that Challenger, ….I had sent Joe the highest RPM Pittman in my arsenal, and it wouldn’t work right….so in this case, a Pittman would not solve the problem….

Pat

There is no easy answer to the 44:1 geared Williams brass, the only reasonable alternative is to find a lower ratio gearbox.  I did upgrades to several of those, and the run great at low speed, but sound like an airplane taking off at anything about about 30-35 scale MPH.

I stuck a pretty hefty flywheel on Joe’s Mabuchi, ….it seems like it’s pretty nice now, ….I listened to it on Joe’s YouTube channel, and I didn’t hear the tell tale Cessna airplane engine sounds, so hopefully this Challenger is put to bed,…..it sure looks like its running well,…..but we’ll let Joe say yay or nay,….

Pat

Well, she isn't built like a tank. The drive I cobbled together has loctite holding gears on shafts with a 3rd Rail belt drive now. The flywheel helps smooth things out. It's faster than it should be. I reset the speeds and chuff rate so she runs good. It needed a different gear box but I couldn't find the right one.

It used to sound like an airplane, like described above. It sounded like it was self-destructing at any decent speed above a crawl.

It is so much quieter! Now the wheels on the train are the loudest thing going by. I'm happy!!

Here's the sound of the airplane from the first page!

I would have to go back a bunch of pages - I am sure that I posted using NWSL mod O.6 gears and Pittman on one of these?