MTH 263 stripped gears

Yep, it's a very common repair for these, the gears don't get greased and the worm eats the bronze gear.  I just fixed a couple of these a few weeks ago, and I have another one on my bench with the same issue.

Pretty sure Henning's has those gears in stock.  Depending on the vintage, you may have to work a little to get the old gear out, the new gear sets have a set screw, so they drop right in.  Some of the older ones were pressed on, so you had to do a little discrete hammering to remove it, making sure to support the motor frame so you didn't wreck it.  Of course, if you have a press, then do it the right way, that's how I take them out.

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yep, it's a very common repair for these, the gears don't get greased and the worm eats the bronze gear.  I just fixed a couple of these a few weeks ago, and I have another one on my bench with the same issue.

Pretty sure Henning's has those gears in stock.  Depending on the vintage, you may have to work a little to get the old gear out, the new gear sets have a set screw, so they drop right in.  Some of the older ones were pressed on, so you had to do a little discrete hammering to remove it, making sure to support the motor frame so you didn't wreck it.  Of course, if you have a press, then do it the right way, that's how I take them out.

Those pics are painful to look at.  How often do you suggest greasing the gears?

Yes I've seen photos of this before on the Forum.  Is the damage really caused by a lack of grease?  Or a gear mesh issue that could be addressed with careful shimming?  Or is this a case where the worm wheel should have been made out of harder material?

If it is a lack of lubrication, a sealed gearbox with a sump would have helped a little.  Since these locos don't have one, I would consider using a sticky grease infused with molybdenum.  The stinky black stuff that MPC used might work well on these.  I once overhauled a 783 Hudson, and it was heck getting it off of my hands!

It's usually missing grease in my experience.  I suggest at a minimum greasing every 25 hours.  Ted's suggestion of a sticky grease is probably right on, I grease them with Red-N-Tacky #2, but I'm sure many other grease products will do fine.

Its a 10-1062-1. Supposedly hardly run. The matching cars were never out of the box. I have less than 10 hours on it. There is definitely grease in there and it is now keeping the bronze shavings gathered together. I have no idea if the grease was in the right place after all those years. I don't have a press but maybe I will look for the part and try a repair.

It's 23 years old, the grease was probably hard as a rock!  Like I said, check with Henning's as that's where I get the gears when I need to fix one of these.

While I am waiting for the folks at Hennings to post a picture of the part to see if I am ordering the correct part (she said it might be TP-OE00147 the first O is a letter),

what will this entail to replace it?  Obviously I got  far enough apart to diagnose the problem and take photos. What else has to be disassembled? Side rods? drive wheels? Other gears? And what about reassembly? Do drivers have to be quartered?

Thanks

David

If it doesn't have a set screw, the last one I did I cut the shaft with a Dremel and removed it that way.  The new one slides in and you just secure the gear with the set screw.

When you drop the baseplate on that motor, the wheels should drop out as well, no quartering needed.