Z CLUB (G.B.)
(Affiliated to Z Club 92)
36 Floribunda Drive, Briar Hill, Northampton. NN4 8RZ
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Newsletter No. 13 - 3rd Quarter 1997
Welcome to newsletter No. 13. Before I go any further can I please ask for the
member who ordered the back issues and track gauge to get in touch with me as I
have mislaid your order and I wish to send it to you as soon as possible. With this
newsletter we conclude Brian Ward's excellent article on maintaining Z Gauge Locos,
we have a quick and simple tip from Fred Service, plus the service sheet for the 8885
express steam locomotive.
New Items
Marklin
88532 Class 120.1 in special "Teun Hocks" livery special 1997 issue
Heckl Kleinserien
Middle Entrance 3 Coach Set Epoch III 349Dm
Etched Brass coach sides utilising Marklin underframes and bogies
Quick Pick 2 Coach set Epoch IV 239 Dm
Quick Pick dining car and 2nd class baggage Car with etched brass
trim on Marklin underframe
IC Bicycle-Luggage-Coach (Dmd 909) Epoch V 99Dm
Based on the Marklin 8757 coach in new blue & white livery and details
to suit
IC Baggage coach with bicycle compartment (Bpmdz 293.8) Epoch V 102 Dm
Based on the Marklin 8773 coach in new blue & white livery and details
to suit
Composite Coach (ABm 224) Epoch IV 102 Dm
Based on the Marklin 8710/11 in ocean blue/beige livery
4 High-speed Freight wagons (Hbbillss-y 307) DB Cargo Livery 178 Dm
Wichernstrasse 11, 44791 Bochum, Germany Tel. 0044 234 503096
I have several items of Dieter's range, they are rebuilds or repaints of standard Marklin
stock and I can vouch for the excellent quality.
Hints and Tips
Concluding Brian Ward's excellent article on maintaining Z Gauge stock.
Locomotives with coupling rods
Steam locomotives such as 8864 and 8884 have rods on the wheels. My best
advice for these is to take care not to get them dirty inside because it's a real
pain to put them back together after a cleaning! Nevertheless, my 8864 had
some serious "conditions" so I lived and learned. If you have to do this (and
I recommend against it if the loco runs OK; you can get to a bit of the axle
where it meets the wheel), here are some pointers. This applies to other
scales than Z, but it's really important.
First take off the couplers before you start work if they are loose. They will
come off and you will have a hard time finding the springs (to say the least) if
you attempt not to disturb them.
Now, when putting them back on, we come to alignment. The pins which hold
the rods must be in the exact same position in all wheels that the rods are
attached to. This is not at all facilitated by the fact that there are two wheels
and thus two rods to worry about on each axle, a consequence of this is that
there is usually exactly one position that the axle fits onto the gears. You
usually start with the axle that is closest to the worm (or fixed) gear. Try to
place it such that one of the rod pins is exactly at the top or bottom (that is,
where the pin is closest or furthest away from the track when it's in operation).
This should be a fairly tight fit; since it's right next to the fixed gear, it won't be
able to rock back and forth. Now, carefully place in the next gears and axles.
Align them such that if they rock back and forth, they go roughly the same
distance from the top or bottom (whichever you choose, this position is good
because it's easy to tell if the pin is exactly on the top or bottom). Don't
bother to put the couplers in yet; you must now test it. Replace the keeper
plate (or whatever) and put the locomotive on the track, and try it at low speed.
If it makes a sound like "wak-wak-wak" (one or two waks per revolution of the
wheels) cut power immediately and try again - it's not aligned. That happens
because at one point in the revolution, the distance between the pins became
larger than the distance between the edges of the holes in the coupling rod,
and thus the rod and pins were strained. If you keep running like this, a pin will
come out and the rod will fall off that wheel. (Yes, I learned the hard way!!)
Anyway, take the plate off and adjust something by one gear tooth, and try
again.
8800, 8805, 8864 and other pint sized locomotives
These are the cheapest of the mini-club locos and generally the biggest pain
in the butt to take care of. First, the trick to taking off the cover is this - hold
the cover (body) firmly in one hand and then press on the front buffers (or
something else on the bottom), moving the chassis back (it should be a little
springy). At some point, you should also be able to push the chassis away
from the body at the front of the loco,. Once this is done, you may notice that
you have just cleared a notch in the body from a tab on the chassis,. Then
push the little dot on the back of the body in (a sawn off round toothpick or
something like that works fine) and lift off the body straight. Do not use force!!
These little beggars are very touchy about dirt on the track and dirt on the
wheels. One reason for this is that they've only got three axles, and only the
outer ones have brushes on them; the middle axle provides no power. This
combined with the fact that the distance between the outer axles is small, and
the loco itself is fairly light, can cause all sorts of mayhem on damaged/dirty
curves and points, especially at low speeds.
Many thanks again to Brian for the use of his excellent article.
Hedges Made Easy by Fred Service
A simple way of making hedges is to use the white pipe cleaners sprinkled
with flock powder, being flexible they can follow the line of the ground with
ease.
Rewiring the ICE and TEE to improve their performance
The ICE and TEE as produced by Marklin are designed to carry the feed to the
rear loco from the leading loco through the coaches via the couplings so that
if the front loco hits an isolated section the rear loco stops as well. This is all
well and good but unless you keep all the contacts between coaches
absolutely perfect, the more coaches you add, the slower they run. To
eliminate this problem you can make both locos power as stand alone by
shorting out the relevant directional diodes on the circuit board in each loco.
It must be pointed out that although this vastly improves the performance, it
will invalidate your Marklin guarantee, also, the whole train must be isolated
to switch it off in a siding or one end will continue to run.
All the modification requires is the ability to solder a thin wire looping out the
two directional diodes marked in the above sketch. I used a single strand of
wire from multistrand wire.
Sales and wants
We have no wants this newsletter but I have been contacted by Southampton Model
Centre, 13, Junction Road, Totton, Southampton, SO40 9HG. Tel. 01703 667317, with
the news that they have had a large collection of early 80's stock in, all brand new
and unused, but will be selling at near second hand prices.
Mr Duncan Galbraith, 2 Lagnagorton, Clachan, By Tarbert, Argyll, Scotland. PA29
6XW. Tel 01880 740266. has a Z Gauge Collection to sell consisting of a large
selection of track and a small selection of stock.
Please contact these people direct and do not forget to mention ZClub(G.B.)
Ztrack
We have been contacted by the North American group of Z gauge modellers 'Ztrack'
with the intention of information exchange, we welcome them and hope the
association will be fruitful.
Z Treffen
The annual Z Gauge gathering in Germany will be held this year on the 27th & 28th
September in the Z Gauge Museum, Cruismannstrasse 48, Bochum, Germany. We
will be attending with Wintersdorf. If anybody else wishes to make the trek and
requires more details please contact me and I will send you a map. This is an
excellent gathering for Z gauge modellers.
Well that's all for now apart from the usual request to you members out there
toplease, please, send in an article as I am running dry on ideas, a lot of you have
requested articles on members own layouts so get writing, remember, without the
articles you will have no newsletter.