During these stay at home times I¡¯m trying to catch up on some incomplete and long delayed projects.? One of them is to get a Mantua Reading Atlantic running well.? I bought it a couple years back because it was nicely built.? These locos had a factory assembled idler gear box and I had high hopes for it as a runner, but unfortunately it¡¯s pretty bad.? It¡¯s very noisy and rough running.? When I run it upside down in a cradle I can see the gearbox shaking and feel it vibrating.
The Mantua kit instructions include this admonition, ¡°The gear box unit is factory-built because its accurate assembly is essential to proper operation.? Not that we don¡¯t trust you!? But do us a favor and DON¡¯T take it apart.¡±?
Well, the statute of limitations on that has long expired and, in any case, I¡¯m pretty fearless about these kinds of things so I figured I¡¯d dig into it and see if I could improve it.? But, in the meantime I bought a bunch of old Mantua parts including one of these gearboxes apart.? My plan was to work on this spare and if I got it running well that would be an improvement for the loco and if I couldn¡¯t, then I wouldn¡¯t be any worse off.? Unfortunately this gearbox is missing an essential part, one of the brass worm shaft bearings.
This bearing is spherical with flat ends.? The diameter is 0.250¡±, length over flats 0.189¡± and the bore fits a 3/32¡± shaft.? P/N is 6303.? A P/N that I think is pre-war is X-086-e.? It is not the same as the similar, but smaller, M0293 used in the logger and 90s era power drive locos.? P/N 6388, used on the General in the late 50s, is dimensionally about the same and might work in a pinch.
If anyone has a spare of these, not worn out, that they would be willing to part with, please contact me off list at jbopp007 ¡°at¡± gmail dotcom.
And, if anyone has any sage advice on getting this loco to run well, I¡¯d be glad to hear it!
John Bopp
