Latest model Bachmann LS Climax universal clamping rings are cracked and crumbling. Must be some kind of wrong, brittle plastic that they were made out of. Engine is NOS, new in the box, and I just brought it out of storage to modify it as Battery R/C and make it live. Of course, Bachmann does not list the part as in stock, so I guess it will have to be 3D printed.

Perhaps there are others needing this same part, and if so, that will make it better for whomever the printer may be! Wondering if they are perhaps the same as on the Shays?!?!

There are some Large Scale hobbyists who are doing 3d printing. In most cases they will need the broken part in order to reverse engineer it.

Al P. is a Finescale modeler who does 3d printing. Here is a copy of a post with his contact info:
Al is a 1:20.3 modeler and and retired CAD engineer.  Makes parts for folks, his email is [email protected] his old company address. He does great work.

The main thing is you must send him the broken part. I was going to use him to make a truck part from a USA Trains passenger car, but in the end I found the part and did not need him. If I need something else I will use him.

Good luck, Bill

Thanks Bill, you are always on top of things here and we are soooooooo lucky to have you!

I'm in touch with Al and we are double checking to see if the Shay universal clamp rings are the same, or at least functionally and dimensionally the same, as those on the Climax, as he has already made those universal parts for the LS Shay!

Hope things work out.  Keep the forum up to date as to how things go.  Bill

Quote from: Loco Bill Canelos on July 06, 2026, 08:18:46 AMHope things work out.  Keep the forum up to date as to how things go.  Bill

Have had several emails with Al and he is very communicative and seems interested in my needs. Finally got my parts in the mail to him a couple of days ago so he should be receiving them soon. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the LS Climax uses two different driveline universal clamping rings, so Al will need to be reverse engineering two different assemblies! He seems fully confident that this will pose no problem, which gives me great confidence as well!

Meanwhile, I have my Climax up and running now with the Amazon control unit tied directly to the electronics package that the last version came with.

Decided to see if I could make it run with the inexpensive Amazon unit without striping out all the original electronics built into the engine, and it seems to be working. Only issues I have had is that I cannot seem to get the cab off, nor the firebox/backhead open to see about installing the battery pack in the boiler, but it actually seems to be working okay just standing on the cab floor behind the backhead and is hardly visible from most any angle. Very handy having it there as well!

Only electrical work I did on the original Bachmann electronics was remove the track pickup wheel contacts from the trucks and remove the smoke unit, which actually wasn't specifically necessary, but thought I might be able to use that space and switch, though it turns out that I have not done so.

Now I just need a drive shaft system upgrade to make it all come together!?!?

Thanks for the update.  This is something that will benefit many Climax owners.

Further update, I had the Climax out on the test track this morning and it ran great! Pulling a light load for break-in purposes, it ran almost continuously for a bit over three hours with perhaps just a dozen or so stops and starts from different speeds, to see how the "coast" settings work, along with a couple of laps around the oval in reverse, and it didn't show any signs of being out of "gas" yet.

All Good!

Took a bit less than an hour and a half to recharge the robot vacuum battery pack at a fairly low amp setting, so that was good too!!

Only issue was that darn front truck universal sleeve flopping around as it ran ..... can't wait to get that fixed!!!

Did squish a whole bunch of ants that seem to really like my rails to travel on. There was fluffy piles of ant bodies packed around the brake shoes on the lead truck, and it didn't smell very good either ... YUCK