No. 180 Heljan Handiwork, a Class 14 and a W&M Railbus
I have to admit to recently becoming an impulsive/compulsive buyer of some early Heljan models. Sadly the terms ‘as new’, ‘unused’ and ‘unopened’ should ring alarm bells. These ‘ten plus’ years old Heljan products should come with a health warning - they can be seriously flawed.
Heljan W&M Railbus
The first to arrive was a W&M railbus from I am guessing 2018. I am happy to believe that it was bought, packed away and never taken out of its box.
8701 - Hejan Railbus W&M E79962
I was concerned about the condition of the motor. However it was not the motor that was an issue it was the ‘click click’ and ‘bang’ from the transmission. Removing the cover plates to expose the drive axles confirmed that one of the final drive gears had cracked and separated from the axle. It was tiny – and why did it have three washers on either side?
Heljan W&M Railbus drive axle with washers and tiny gear
My Heljan drive gear had 12 teeth, a length (width) of 2mm, a central shaft diameter of c2mm and an outside diameter of c5.75mm. As a first attempt I slipped the gear off the shaft and glued it back together with super glue. To avoid too much stress I then drilled out the axle hole with a 2mm twist bit. Sadly all this did was burst the gear apart again. Super glue and nylon are not a good match
I would need a replacement. Perhaps Heljan had replacement wheel sets?
I find the Heljan UK / Gaugemaster Spares web site difficult to navigate and I couldn’t locate any suitable wheel sets. I sent Heljan UK a web mail.
I also searched for suitable small gears on the web and found a UK supplier of tiny nylon gears for slot cars. He offered First Class post and next day I had two tiny gears c6mm in diameter, one with twelve teeth and one with eleven teeth. However offering them up to the Heljan axle showed them to be too big and heavy. These slot car gears are detailed as being Mod 0.5. More searching revealed that the Mod value sets the spacing of the teeth and is critical to sizing the gear.
There is a formula, number of teeth plus 2, times the Mod value gives the outer diameter of the gear. Working backwards from the broken Heljan gear suggested a Mod value of 0.4.
I should add that there is a company in the USA called NorthWest Short Line. They will supply upgraded gears for virtually any model train. Whilst their small gears are priced at just £10 customs and postage raises the price to nearly £50.00 – ouch.
I think a week had elapsed with no response from Heljan UK so I emailed Heljan DK. I had an immediate reply and a day later a designer emailed with the dimensions of the rail bus gears. Heljan DK states that the gears used for the Railbus are as follows:
Gear on Wheel is a 12T gear M04. Length: 4mm. Bore dia. 1.8
Gear on Idler Axle is a 17T gear M04. Length: 2mm. Bore dia. 1.5
Spur Gear 20/10T gear M04 Length: 2 and 2mm. Bore dia. 1.5
Heljan W&M Railbus - design drawing
Note that the gear on the wheel has a length of 4mm. Perhaps that is why my 2mm gear had so many washers added on either side?
Heljan DK also said that they doubted that Heljan / Gaugemaster UK would have any spares. I would need to search further.
Whilst corresponding with Heljan I thought I should see what modellers on RMweb had to say. Amazingly ‘Will’ on RM web had found some suitable replacement gears on Amazon
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/166573-wm-railbus-failure/?do=findComment&comment=5318894
I would follow his link and yes they were still available.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MKSIWSA-Industry-Diameter-Height-Pinions/dp/B09PY69SX6?th=1
Despite delivery estimated at three weeks a little parcel arrived from China within almost the week. I thought that I ordered 6mm length gears but the gears in my parcel were only 4mm long. This was a bonus because ‘Will’ on RMweb had gone to a lot of time and trouble to cut his gear down to 2mm to match his broken gear, and now I was being told by Heljan that the design size was 4mm – and that is what I had been sent!
Chinese gears and Chinese packing
I tried using our Aga hot plate to expand the brass gear to fit the Heljan axle but it didn’t want to work. Plan B was to drill out the brass gear with a 2mm twist bit and then to fix it in place with some super glue. It worked very well.
Felt to protect the teeth whilst gripping the gear for drilling
Replacement brass drive gear ready to fit
Replacement brass drive gear ready to go
8701 - Hejan Railbus W&M E79962
Replacement wheel Set from Heljan
I had literally only just sent Hejan DK a picture of my wheel set with Chinese brass gear when these replacement axles arrived in the Post from Heljan UK.
I would say that as well as larger 4mm length gears the wheels have finer flanges.
A good outcome, thank you Heljan.
There is a video of the rail bus running first with its brass gear and then with the new Heljan Nylon gears. I think the latter might be quieter.
Whilst corresponding with Heljan I thought I should see what modellers on RMweb had to say. Amazingly ‘Will’ on RM web had found some suitable replacement gears on Amazon
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/forums/topic/166573-wm-railbus-failure/?do=findComment&comment=5318894
I would follow his link and yes they were still available.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/MKSIWSA-Industry-Diameter-Height-Pinions/dp/B09PY69SX6?th=1
Despite delivery estimated at three weeks a little parcel arrived from China within almost the week. I thought that I ordered 6mm length gears but the gears in my parcel were only 4mm long. This was a bonus because ‘Will’ on RMweb had gone to a lot of time and trouble to cut his gear down to 2mm to match his broken gear, and now I was being told by Heljan that the design size was 4mm – and that is what I had been sent!
Chinese gears and Chinese packing
I tried using our Aga hot plate to expand the brass gear to fit the Heljan axle but it didn’t want to work. Plan B was to drill out the brass gear with a 2mm twist bit and then to fix it in place with some super glue. It worked very well.
I had literally only just sent Hejan DK a picture of my wheel set with Chinese brass gear when these replacement axles arrived in the Post from Heljan UK.
I would say that as well as larger 4mm length gears the wheels have finer flanges.
A good outcome, thank you Heljan.
There is a video of the rail bus running first with its brass gear and then with the new Heljan Nylon gears. I think the latter might be quieter.
Heljan / Hattons Class 14 (Teddy Bear)
The second Heljan model to arrive was a Class 14 from perhaps 2009. I was told that it ran well 9/10. I thought it waddled all over the place, made a loud knocking noise and jumped some of my electrofrog points. Checking RMweb I concluded that there were serious issues with the design and manufacture of the model – too much hurry to get to market?
There is an excellent Blog in another place by Graham Plowman https://www.mrol.com.au/pages/vu/heljanclass14modifications
Not only did Graham’s model suffer from running issues but he found that he had some malformed gears.
The fundamental issue with the Class 14 model is that the chassis has been manufactured too narrow with the result that there is far too much side play in the axles (and Jackshaft). Graham suggests 4mm of sideplay compared to 2mm which might be thought acceptable.
To avoid dismantling the wheel sets modellers have come up with solutions such as using spring washers or ‘circlips’ cut from Peco fibre washers to fit between the wheels and the chassis.
I wanted a simple ‘kitchen table’ solution and decided that I could make a split sleeve from the outer sheath of electric power cable and use that to restrict the lateral movement within the chassis. The only question was ‘How long should I make the sheaths’? Using a little bit of logic and a lot of trial and error I decided that the Jackshaft needed a 7mm long sheath while the two outer driving axles required more sideplay and that a 6.5mm long sheath worked better for me.
Heljan Class 14 Chassis with sideplay restricted
This is not a precision solution but it is working well. For the present the sleeves are only held by friction. If the sleeves move and interfere with the running it will be an easy fix to drop a spot of super glue onto the centre of the cut sleeve.
I am well pleased with the result and there is a video of the Class 14 heading up a train of empties:
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