Getting Your Westside Hon3 Brass Locomotives to Actually Run! Re-gearing, Re-motoring and More!

How many of you out there have vintage 1970's era Westside hon3 brass models that look great parked on a RIP track but as soon as it's time to run them you remember why they were parked out on the RIP track to begin with?

This video specifically covers two common Westside imports, the D&RGW C-25 and K-37, both made by Nakamura in Japan, but the problems and fixes are applicable to most of the outside frame Westside D&RGW models from this era.

We will cover re-motoring using surplus Namiki 1634 ( I accidentally called it a 1630 motor in the video) coreless motors, NWSL (Northwest Shortline) Delrin idler gear replacement, drive gear truing, driver spring replacement, and more!

The very common Westside C-25 model comes with a can motor that runs at high enough RPMs that it is capable of breaking the earth's gravitational pull and entering orbit. It lacks a flywheel and features an all brass gear train that will eventually eat itself. It also has rock hard driver springs that don't really act much like springs.

The K-37 comes with a giant old school, highly inefficient, open frame five pole motor. That's the first issue. It has no flywheel, an all brass gear train, and the some crazy driver springs that could support a 1:1 scale semi truck.

Both of these models have issues with driver gears that run non-concentric which causes a "hop" and a bind when running. You can especially see this a low speeds on an unmodified Westside hon3 model from this era. If you can loosen up your gearbox cover plate and the problem seems to get resolved, you have this issue.

I'll walk you through how to correct all of these issues and offer some before and after comparisons.

Don't forget to shop with our friends at Northwest Shortline (www.NWSL.com) so we can continue to have parts like the one's I have listed below! Without resources like NWSL, upgrading the drive systems in these old brass clunkers would be a lot more challenging.


NWSL parts used in this video:

Delrin Idler Gears

https://nwsl.com/products/worm-gear-0...

Light Springs

https://nwsl.com/products/spring-ligh...

ADDENDUM:

I'm getting a lot of requests to show the actual, wheel, axle, and gear truing process I used on these models. I will put that process in a future video along with driver quartering. This group of activities is probably the most important starting point in this process. Most brass locomotives from this era and ALL the MDC hon3 2-8-0 kits had terrible, wobbly wheelsets and poorly assembled drive gears. There's nothing less desirable than a locomotive that waddles and hops down the track!