StarSwitcher TnA (and others) repair thread

[ripley802]

Here is a thread to follow along with some of the repairs for StarSwitcher. This is mostly for the TnA engines as I am hoping it may help others along the way if there are similar issues. There are a few others in the lot for repairs which I will include in the thread as well.

Here is a quick look at the lot which will be repaired soon. Check back for more updates.

[Super]

Go get em Ripley

Ripley's Repair Shop

"You break it I fix it!"

[ripley802]

You may be on to something...

Hope the babies enjoy their time at Ripley's Engine Hospital! I'm sure they'd love to be going again! (That piece of paper was written a year ago, I can't remember what it said haha!) Good luck on the repairs my friend

You may be on to something...

We will take 10% please? LOL

Ooohhhh, I love these tna trains. Whilst looking at jauce it seems that the Japanese speaking James, Percy and Toby are getting harder to find now, but Henry and Gordon who were impossible to find years ago are starting to become very common and you could have no trouble finding them, interesting

[ripley802]

A little update.

Salty, Duck, and the 8000 Series are all repaired and seem to be working fine now.

TnA Henry is looking good as well. Here are a couple shots of the repairs needed.
- New speaker needed
- New axel gear
- New tires





Gordon was next on my list.
- New tires
- New axel gear
Edit***
- Also a new speaker



Gordon is back together and seems to work most of the time. I say this because he is like many of the others I have seen and worked on. Sometimes he will go around and be fine making all stops in the track or all actions, etc... other times he drives right over them. This I believe is due to the orange wires which control the activation mechanism which get in a bind. I am going to re-look at this again and see if I can find a solution. Also like others, he seems slow. In the past I have replaced the motor or even components on the circuit board but it still does not seem to help. Again, I am going to re-look at this to see if there is something more to be done.

Lovely to see it all coming together now! For slow Gordon, could it be because his motor is worn? Could a new one (possibly better one ) fix the problem?

Surprised all Gordon needed was just new wheels- when I had him, he did literally nothing! haha

Thanks again man

[ripley802]

Whoops. Yep he needed a new speaker too. And yeah when I took the wheels out the axel gear fell apart, I think it was cracked in a few spots that caused it to just crumble. So it would give the symptoms of doing nothing really. I have a few things I want to try on him to see if speed changes but definitely I want to make the action part consistent with him. These are not really speed champions or hill climbers but for some reason they appear to have a flaw that makes them very slow. The odd thing is, when the hit the track that activates and makes them speed up it is fine, then once that action is over it is back to being slow. I need to find which component is the culprit but I think the motor is ok.