Heljan 128 making a clicking noise

[mahoganydog]

Hi all,

I've just bought one of these new and in one direction it is making a clicking noise. Just curious if it is something simple that I can fix rather than send it back.

Thanks

Jim

[mahoganydog]

Right, it's raining so I decided to have a non-invasive look and the noise is every revolution of the wheels. A closer look reveals that there is a tiny piece of plastic flash on one axle which is causing the clicking by lifting the pickup wiper away then letting it fly back but only in one direction!

I wonder how many they have returned with this tiny defect?

Knowing this fault could some of the cheap models advertised as having a clicking noise be this simple to fix? Hmmmm......

Jim

Note to Mods, the "Edit" button has vanished!

[Bigmet]

Neat piece of detective work. Finding what a repetitive noise synchs with on a one per rotation basis is usually helpful. The one that really puzzled me was an irregular 'tick ticktick tick tick tick etc.' that varied with speeed of the loco, both directions. A sandpipe moulding had come loose and was brushing against the ballast; first surprise was that it could make that much noise to be readily audible.

[Mountain]

Haha. Yes. The simplest things... Rather like when we would jam lollypop sticks into the caliper brake slot on our bicycles and thought we were on motorbikes...

[Bufferstop]

You had to be careful with those lollipop sticks, or the folded up cardboard strip. Put it in from the wrong side and it give the tyre valve a little nudge at each revolution, then just at the most inconvenient moment the valve would be ejected with a rude noise and the collapse of the rear tyre.