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?

I have a Dennis with a cracked gear on the axle, how can I fix that problem,

[Super]

@T-Boy
There are many members that have different ways to replace a gear if you search around the site. Here is one way I do it.
https://blueplastictracks.com/showthread.php?tid=866

I'd say you could consider it such, especially the price and condition. Even though he was literally made from Duke (with Smudger's face) for the only episode he was in, the TrackMaster version used a slightly different mould instead of being a repaint.

You've reminded me: My Emily's tender has the same issue, and it initially made me so irritated that I once dismantled it to see what was causing the extra noise. Now I finally get why I couldn't find anything obvious all those years back, not even after I learnt how to spot mechanical problems (I never revisited that case since then). To think one microscopic gap in a gear causes such a nuisance when a device runs.

[Super]

Hi Da-lag

I agree, I would have thought that a cracked motor gear would act like a cracked axle gear where the engine would slip as it moves down the track. Never thought that something like that would make such a racket. I had to use a flashlight and a magnifying glass just to see the hair line crack.

Yes, you are right, one of the upgrades (to me) is the swapping out of the white couplings with black. With the dark brown train the whites ones just stand out too much for me. Plus the black ones match the chassis and wheels of both the Tender and Engine.

Lets see if someone else can spot the other upgrade before I give out a hint. Anyone???

Lets see if someone else can spot the other upgrade before I give out a hint. Anyone???

Since there don't seem to be any other takers: Tender - wheels - colour.

(Which I wouldn't have known if Super hadn't helped me buy one from the USA last year!)

since a lot of the trackmaster motors are compatible to other engines, I just swap the motors.

[Super]

haha...right you are Dr Chris. I don't understand why they had the normal gray wheels on the Tender when the engine has black. I swapped out the gray wheels with black that are exact matches with the spoked engine wheels. I think it looks way better this way, what to you all think?