A Large Distraction

I found this Lionel Large Scale Gold Rush Special at a thrift store in DC.  It was bubble-wrapped together with a loop of track.  I wasn't even sure what it was at first, but, hey, it was only 20 bucks.  Turns out it was a nice "little" train.  It needed a few plastic parts which I have ordered from Brasseur Electric Trains.   





I did get down to the basement tonight, but I was distracted by the Lionel G-scale 0-6-0.  I have been trying to get it to run smoothly.   Instead of smooth motion, it goes thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack.  The idler gears wobble all over the place and one of the drivers was not squared.   I did a lot of unsuccessful tweaking, then I took out the idler gears and just had it drive using the drive rods.  More thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack.  Now I am out of ideas, so I put the idler gears back in place and reassembled it.  Success!  No more thwack!  Not sure how I fixed it, but I think that one of the idler gears must have been offset by one tooth.


So, now I have a fine running, fine looking "around the Christmas tree" narrow gauge train.