Did I Get Lucky???

[Super]

I have been after a new in box Bertram for the Future World Collection for forever and never had any luck. Was I lucky to find this very good conditioned used one for Buy-It-Now at $14.99 which I thought was a good deal for him? He ran good but was plagued by a lot of flat drive motors where he developed a crackle and was noisy. I had always thought it to be a problem with the axle gear that made the noise and although I could lessen the noise with a new axle gear and lithium grease, I could never get rid of the noise totally. Well thanks to 2 YouTubers, Custom Thomas Michael Arnett and Custom Trackmasters, I have learned that the noise in flat drives is from a cracked motor gear and not the axle gear. I could never see a crack in those gears because they are so fine. Sure enough, Bertram had a hair line crack which was very hard to see but it was there. Simply replaced that gear and now Bertram purrs like a baby kitten. For anyone interested in these flat drive motor gears I have sourced them from a USA seller but they are also available from other sellers. The flat drive motors use a plastic 8 toothed gear 5mm od x 2mm id. These are only for the flat drives as other motors use I believe a 10 toothed gear. Amazon

Besides a new gear I did 2 upgrades to Bertram (well I think they are upgrades). Can you see/name what they are?