3 Truck Shay...Locked? Truck

[lqdsky]

I picked up my first 3 truck Shay. The 3rd truck is locked. Before I start taking things apart, I want to make sure it was not intended to be locked.

It will not move horizontally.

Thanks

Ralph

[Jon D. Miller]

Ralph,
The third truck, under the tender, is not intended to pivot. Don't change it.

There should be a very slight amount of side-bearing, nothing more.

Since the tender is pulled by a drawbar there is no need for the truck to pivot.  In fact, if the truck did pivot it would be next to impossible to back the locomotive with a cut of cars.  The truck would derail.

Don't go by the supplied DVD. That Shay was a preproduction version and on the DVD the tender truck does pivot. Bachmann made a change and mounted the truck so it would not pivot on the production versions.


One of the "Enthusiastic Children"

JD

[lqdsky]

Jon ..Thanks..It did ccatch me off guard when I saw the truck move in the video.

Thank

[rz1600]

Hello,
I own 5 of these shays and on everyone the tendertruck can pivot. The screws are well tight but the truck can pivot. How is that possible.
Now beeing at the trucks I have some weird things that happened with these shays. One after the other began to lift the middle truck in curves and some even on the straight line. Even when glueing the tendertruck to the frame. I remarked that the torque applied on the shaft doesn't give the truck the chance to stay on track the force pushes the truck out of the rails even at very low speed. Is that a common problem?
The funny thing is, that my converted 3 to 4 truck shay is the best runner and here from the beginning on I fixed the 3rd truck because of torque binding problem lifting the truck.