Mehano Steam locomotive locks up


Hi there i have a Mehano Union Pacific 2-6-0 steam locomotive after a while it will just lock up. And all I have to do is move it back and forth a few times and it frees up wondering if anyone else has these type of issues with there Mehano Thanks in advance for the answers.
 
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I'm not sure about their other locos, but this is what I found about their 'mountain type'

IHC/ Mehano 4-8-2 C&O Mountain

Tue, 2018-01-30 14:02 — railandsail

The very first steam loco I bought was a 4-8-2 from IHC that was built by Mehano in Slovania. It was the C&O version with the flying pumps on the front of the boiler. I still have 3 of them and they all run (ran) great. The Vandy tenders that came with them from stock were a little 'malformed' with their squared off bottoms at the forward edges. This was a result of the original tooling having to accommodate a motor in the the front section of the tender that drove the whole loco, rather than the motor in the boiler region.
I had mine weathered up and use to run them doubled headed. I still plan on doing this on my new layout, but will have to convert them to DCC and sound.
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Here is a video of someone who has provided a modified vandy tender and some other detailing

I liked this C&O type engine so much I now have host of Backmann versions of this loco, with the much improved version of the vandy tender

Surprise, my older IHC 2-8-2 Mountain made it thru just fine. I think that is likely a result of its semi cookie cutter wheels on both the loco and the tender.
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This IHC model came with 2 alternate tenders, the vandy and a rectangular. Both had those same wheels that had problems with those defective Peco X's I addressed earlier, but they sailed right thru this latest configuration with no problems.
 
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Hi there i have a Mehano Union Pacific 2-6-0 steam locomotive after a while it will just lock up. And all I have to do is move it back and forth a few times and it frees up wondering if anyone else has these type of issues with there Mehano Thanks in advance for the answers.
Can you be more precise on what "a while" is? Moving it back and forth by hand up and down the rails, or rocking it side side?

Just generically for a steam locomotive, I would first look for something loose in the valve gear, especially the eccentric connection. Second I would look for a quartering issue because of a loose (spinning on the axle) wheel.
 
I'm not sure about their other locos, but this is what I found about their 'mountain type'
These really are nice.

I read that Mehano is part of IHC or something like that, IHS? I also read they were at some point a division of Bachmann.

I wonder what makes a Bachmann a Mehano, what the distinguishing feature is... Perhaps it is high quality small bits that Mehano focuses on.
 
These really are nice.

I read that Mehano is part of IHC or something like that, IHS? I also read they were at some point a division of Bachmann.

I wonder what makes a Bachmann a Mehano, what the distinguishing feature is... Perhaps it is high quality small bits that Mehano focuses on.
I can find no reference for any specific Bachmann re-branding of Mehano products. But I have to say the "history" section of Mehano site is pathetic at best. What I did find was that Mehano's primary USA outlet was the International Hobby Corporation, and many of their units were rebranded IHC. I found that the HO scale Life-Like S-1, RS-2, and RS-11 were re-branded Mehano products. In Canada it is "Presidents Choice" brand. More recently Mehano specialized in models of the high speed trains like the TGV. So maybe that is the Bachmann connection, as I know they have a TGV in N-scale. It is an interesting sleuth assignment to track down all the products that are Mehano under the covers.

On that note I also found one reference that says Mehano was an early producer of N-scale trains in the 1960s.

Personally, I do remember seeing straight up Mehano brand in Model Railroader ads in the early 1980s. And I believe I have at least two IHC 2-6-0 that are Mehano manufactured.
 
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Hi there i have a Mehano Union Pacific 2-6-0 steam locomotive after a while it will just lock up. And all I have to do is move it back and forth a few times and it frees up wondering if anyone else has these type of issues with there Mehano Thanks in advance for the answers.

I did not realize this before. But I have the same exact identical locomotive as you do. I paid $47 for it and so it is the best cheap engine I ever had.

I have never had issues with lock-up with mine. But I will tell you that I DID have lock up issues with another locomotive that is designed similarly... I have a Lionel 0 8 0 where the wheels are similarly in sync and anyway at some point I was feeling adventurous and had taken it apart to add weight and a consequence to this was that it began locking up. I wound up never being able to get it to not lock up. It just got worse the more I tried, until I did something really rash. I gutted all the connective parts to it and turned it into a lame 2 wheel drive 0 8 0.

I wound up having to sell it for parts. A near total waste because I bought it brand new for $220 in 2021.
 
I will tell you that I DID have lock up issues with another locomotive that is designed similarly... I have a Lionel 0 8 0 where the wheels are similarly in sync and anyway at some point I was feeling adventurous and had taken it apart to add weight and a consequence to this was that it began locking up. I wound up never being able to get it to not lock up. It just got worse the more I tried, until I did something really rash. I gutted all the connective parts to it and turned it into a lame 2 wheel drive 0 8 0.
That sounds like either a wheel quartering issue - all four axles not having the quartering set the same(perhaps one wheelset was put on left/right from its original), or an improperly positioned eccentric crank.
 
That sounds like either a wheel quartering issue - all four axles not having the quartering set the same(perhaps one wheelset was put on left/right from its original), or an improperly positioned eccentric crank.
Okay. I am not sure if this locking up started specifically after I added the roll of pennies, or if it was destined to happen regardless. Because, you don't have to get into the axle box to add a roll of pennies... I don't know if I caused this problem to begin with but I did tinker with it so its possible.

The lesson here... I guess is to never take apart a steam locomotive. The only locomotive I can successfully do surgery on... is a Lionel GP-38 Conrail. That is a tank, and I have done real surgery on her. You know the two spring pillars that guide the trucks and keep them into level position... acting as shocks basically.. One of those disappeared from her, and I fashioned a stand-in by cutting some soft flat metal into shape, and got a similar spring from elsewhere and designed it to fit snug into place where the prior post used to be and it has held together ever since.

I think aside from that, my policy is to not take locomotives apart anymore, generally.
 



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