Good work as ever Bill. The T9 was designed by Dugald Drummond who cut his teeth on the Highland, North British and Caledonian Railways, his locos had a family resemblance. That unusual bronze motor and gear mount is an after market part from Peter’s Spares as well as the new back plate you fitted. The motor mount saga is another sad tale of Hornby bad design and the use of crumbling mazak, hence the replacement part, if you Google it there are many many examples.
Dugald Drummond was appointed as Works Manager at HR Inverness works by William Stroudley, who would become the Loco. Supdt. of the LBSCR. It is no coincidence that Stroudley's famous LBSCR 'Improved engine green' bears a remarble similarity to the yellow ochre used on HR locomotives. Dugald's brother, Peter, started his career at the LBSCR and eventually suceeded David Jones as Loco Supdt at the HR. The Scottish influence down down south was considerable.
Mine had that. Its had a replacement although I need a DCC controller or a blanking plate to be able to test run it. There was recently a guide in Model Rail magazine showing how to do this repair on one of these. I'm tempted to buy another one and another replacement bracket and have two of them as I'd like an 8 wheel tender version too.
Both of my early T9s with mazak degradation were repaired for me by Hornby but that was a number of years ago now. I wonder if dropping it showed up the mazak degradation earlier than it otherwise would have made itself apparent.
My first T9 suffered Mazak rot and the motor mounting and the front bogie failed. Hence, it may be that the drop helped the Mazak rot along its evil way. To be fair to Hornby, Hornby repaired both of my T9s that suffered from Mazak rot. The second was this same 312 model. That was a several years ago though and I did have the help of Simon K with one and I had to supply the unique production codes for both. My understanding is that it is only the first T9s that suffer from Mazak rot. Later ones are understood to be better.
Amazing repair Bill as always but it goes to underline how modern Hornby are not interested once they have had the customers money. How different things used to be in the seventies and eighties where they bent over backwards to help the consumer. From the mid to late nineties onwards is where things started going down hill.
in the 90's when i was little, i got to visit the hornby factory. I took a broken train with me and when i got there the tour guide asked what i was holding. I told him that i had my train & it no longer worked. He took me to the guys that built the trains and gave my train over, some dude ripped it apart, fixed it and put it back together again in like 10 minutes, completly fixing it. Now that factory is closed and everything is made in china.
Hi Bill. Excellent job on a fiddly repair. Just one afterthought though which is: you could have inserted a plastic washer on the front bogie screw to a) stop it from screwing in too deep and causing another short circuit and b) stop the screw from working its way loose through any future vibration. Just a thought. Paul. 👍❤
Thats a great repair. Not watched video not been able repair yet. Think when i learn enough by watching your channel, i might have attempt try get my dud locos running
Another lovely job Bill. I had to hardwire mine( DCC speak for connecting decoder wires directly to motor & pick ups) because of the atrocious soldering from the Hornby factory. I dont like traction tyres especially on driving wheels but this is such a good looking loco I allowed it. Cheers
Beyond economic repair doesn’t mean it’s beyond their ability, it means that the cost of paying them to do it would be greater than the cost of a new model. How many hours did this take? Multiply that by a commercial charge rate.
hi Bill. great job done in which the clowns at hornby could not do, back in the Triang Railways days it would have done, no wonder simon Koeler has jumped ship, i believe hornby will go the same way as the Titanic soon,as the spare parts service is simply apauling,
My T9 is currently in deep storage(=back of over-filled cupboard) but after seeing Bill's video and the comments below I have bought a replacement rear bracket and bookmarked this video. I am fairly certain that there is nasty mazak mess waiting for me when I finally retrieve the T9.
The motor bracket is metal. Not plastic. The cracks in it are the signs of Mazak rot. Thats why it has a brass motor mount, thats an after market replacement as the original would have crumbled away. I’d have checked the chassis as its prone to cracking too. The T9’s are really bad for it.
I've repaired a few of these. Both of the brass mounts are from Peter's Spares. They're cast, and due to variance when cooling they need some work to fit. It does sound as if the motor is being clamped down too tightly. You need to remove some metal from the arch that goes above the gear end of the motor. Makes it a much smoother runner.
A beautiful loco - glad you managed to sort it out. Keep thinking I'll get myself one of these though I prefer the version with the 8 wheeled tender. There's more than a passing resemblance to some of the Scottish 4-4-0s too - another one to add to my project list!
Oh dear... There they are. I've done two rebuilds of this through our friend mazac. The second hornby were amazing and sent a replacement chassis within 5 days I also got a lot of good advice on the Hornby forums as the whole thing was shot. The design of this is ridiculously complicated and there's no real reason I can see that it needed to be other than making us have to buy a new loco 😂
Well done Bill for showing Hornby up, yet again! Can you show what glue etc you use for your track and how you lay and stick the ballest down. What ballest would you recommend? Perhaps a vid on this? Your wisdom would be greatly appreciated! Regards Peter Yeadon
I will do a video on ballasting when I eventually get to it. I just use PVA to tack the track down. Not too much just a blob here and there. The ballast holds it place solidly.
The brass motor mount will be a replacement, these T9’s are notorious for Mazak Rot in their original white metal mounts. Someone will have replaced the original with the brass version.
Another great job on a very fiddly and delicate model. I hesitate to mention it though, but I think there may be something catching the spokes of a wheel. Did you ever use a clothes peg to clip a playing card to your rear bycycle fork to get a clacking sound as the spikes passed by? Sounds a little like that. When you tested the engine without the body it ran much quieter. I have a T9 which runs almost silently. Hope you don't think I'm trying to teach granny how to suck eggs, you do such amazing jobs with these repairs.
Nice job, they are fiddly to work on, wires all over the place, and a lot of separate parts. The "brass" motor mount you mention could be a replacement for the original alloy one fitted, (mazdark alloy?) these tended to rot, or maybe a hornby update?
Crumbling Mazak from about 2006 to about 2015 on Hornby models caused by used recycled materials that weren't cleaned properly. I have 8 Royal Scots , 3 Patriots and 4 S15's that all suffer the same problem, Mazak rot. You can't get spares off Hornby as you get that beyond economic repair bullshit or life expired was another one I heard. My solution was to build brass chassis from Comet but then you have a weight problem. Needless to say the aforementioned models are just turning to dust in their boxes.
Is this not a model from 2009? Was the bracket made from mazak, and not plastic. The dreaded mazak rot. For Peter's Spares to make a special replacement part means this is common fault on this old loco. I don't blame Hornby for it's decision.
Hi Bill, Great channel, watch all your posts, love the innovative repairs you come up with as required. Looking for a bit pf help please - I was given a R2104 - 70050 Firth of Clyde for a birthday present but it requires new traction tyres which I cannot find anywhere - X8865 - Traction Tyres - Size: 10mm internal diameter, 1.5mm wide, 0.5mm thick (approximately) - would you know of an alternative for this model other than bullfrog snot, may be another manufacturers tyres would fit? Hope you can help. Best Regards Colin C
Bill, did you ever do anything with that box of Flying Scotsman parts I sent a while back? Hopefully the spares have helped other people's loco's going!
I have one of these - they are too light as standard and need some weight adding if you want to haul trains of more than about 3 or 4 coaches. Yours sounds very noisy for some reason.
tells you the skill is no longer in the UK all hornby is is a sales team mad up from university grads selling chinese tat ,, that is a minefield for anyone with no knowledge or spares back up , which hornby lost decades ago ,, my message to everyone is to let your cat have a go as even he has more knowledge than hornby , the real skills are in china
