Model Railway Forum

Hi Everyone

I recently purchased a Lima Class 66 ( Freightliner Livery ) off ebay and its a great loco in that it works, however, it needs some remedial work done on it.

So whats wrong with it I hear you all ask, I will attempt to describe the issues as best I can.

1 ) The motor is noisy at all speeds in both directions

2 ) It has no traction tyres at all ( I think it might have been previously used on a depot layout )

3 ) When I checked the motor I have found that the teeth on all the gears appear to be literally rammed against the neighbouring gear which I have learned before now is what makes the awful noise lima motors are renowned for.

4 ) The couplings are chassis mounted ( removed from bogies by previous owner ) and as a consequence whether hauling or pushing stock, the couplings seperate and both loco and stock become derailed ( often completely of the road ).

As I want the loco to be able to haul trains of decent length ( 12 coaches or 25 - 30+ wagons if possible ) I am looking to restore full traction abilities with dare I say it, traction tyres refitted, extra weight if there is sufficient room for it, quieten the gear noise down, return the couplings to bogie mounted ( 1 experiment is already in progress ) and lastly, to remotor the loco hopefully with a 12v cd motor conversion kit to make it run more realistically as it has the famous characteristics of turn up the power to around 1/2 way, it starts to buzz then as power increases it lurches into life and heads off down the line.

Onto the questions.

1 ) Is there any way I can quieten the gears down ?

2 ) Where can I purchase the appropriate traction tyres from ?

3 ) Although I have a coupling remount experiment in progress, should it fail for any reason, is it possible to purhase brand new lima class 66 bogie mouldings to replace the current mouldings if necessary ?

My thanks in advance for any replies given and all will be greatly appreciated and welcome.

Hello a lot there to ask but i will try to help
Gear noise on some Lima where they were produced in volume they often missed in Qc the gears in the gear train can sometimes have flash or imperfections on the gears, best take apart and examine each gear there is videos on other Lima's as it is common to a number of different models.
Traction tyres should be there but if missing one place you can pickup some from with good reviews is Mtrains
Bogie sides i'm not an expert but the Lima class 66 is related to the 59 model so may share frames for the bogie trailing or powered which is available from peters spares

I'd avoid traction tyres if you can... Are the wheels setup for them? There is usually a pronounced step on the tread of the wheel, outboard of the flange.

Ebay would be a good source of parts, as you could possibly get entire bogie and motor sets.

Many thanks for your replies, after a lot of head scratching and planning on what to do, I was looking around on the new modellers shop website and found a complete hornby X6370 class 66 motor bogie for £13.95 + postage complete with the bogie moulding including a nem coupler with a tension lock coupler which was swapped out for a Kadee #20 coupler.

The original pancake motor bogie had ultrascale wheels which don't have traction tyres but were constantly derailing the loco even at slow speeds.

As per the hornby class 66 which has an up and over motor mounting point. I had to make 1 of these out of 80 thou plasticard which did require a lot of trial and error. With a bit of filing of the piece onto which the motor connects to the up and over fitting ( not sure what it's actually called ) and a washer between the mounting and the motor casing to stop the bogie moulding from fouling the chassis, also with the addition of some coach & wagon weights and extra weight in the main portion of the body, the loco can comfortably haul 8 mk1 coaches now ( the most I can have on my current layout due to space restrictions ) and has been tested with upto 24 wagons + a queen mary brake van ( again due to space restrictions ) but all in all successful tests.

I currently have the loco attached to 5 mk4 coaches + dvt as I don't have a tfw class 67 at present but a class 66 on a passenger service, very worthy substitute in my opinion.

The loco still needs a new unpowered bogie but that is in the pipeline aswell as rebuilding a hornby class 66 chassis to hopefully add another to my loco fleet.

With the change of title ( hope it works ), I recently purchased a Lima Class 40 as number 40001 off ebay for £30, the loco needed a bit of a service as it was rather jumpy despite clean rails, loco wheels & pickups so I dismantled the motor bogie and cleaned it all up.

As I do not own silicon grease, daft as this might sound ( but it works ), I used old butter as a grease mixed with oil to lubricate the gearing and although not down to total silence yet, the noise level from it is reduced although another service will be due soon.

Recently a friend of mine gave me an old cd / dvd drive for a desktop pc and from this I salvaged useful screws and the drawer motor of suitable power rating for a 12 volt supply, the cd motor has recently been fitted into 40001 and the loco now runs much better but still noisy so may need to give the gearing a filing to quieten it down but I am also contemplating purchasing a hornby class 40 motor bogie from the earlier mentioned new modellers shop.

As the traction tyres on the upgraded hornby motor bogies often end up being shed from the motors all to easily, on he 66 I managed to find some Lima class 37 wheels ( fortunately same diameter as lima 66 motor wheels ) and fitted them to the hornby axles after minor modifications to the wheels given that if they are fitted onto hornby axles they do not need the moulded gears on the backs so these were removed. With the axles refitted with 1 tyre per rail the 66 benefits from the motor bogies own pickups plus the pickups at the unpowered end.