Saltford Simplex rebuild part 1.

I'm rebuilding my broken Saltford Models Simplex, which featured in this post. This was possibly my first loco kit, if not it'll be the second or third as I built a couple of Peco Vari-Kits around the same time. My aim is to improve the running but keeping the look of the original build, so I'm going to try and leave the green paint as is.

The wheels as supplied are 3mm wide and rather coarse, so I've made up replacements using the method described here. This time however I've used the tyres from 6.2mm dia. Parkside wheels, and to keep the 3mm width there is a shoulder turned on the outer face of the boss. Brian used 1/16" material for his axles, so my wheels are drilled 1.5mm and opened out with a 5-sided cutting broach, this gives me fine control over the final hole size making it easier to make the stub axles (1/16" silver steel) a light press fit. On one side I've fitted Nigel Lawton 3mm pulleys, broached out and Loctited to the stub axles to carry the drive to the front axle, remember that these kits only drive the rear axle. Here's the machined components waiting to be glued together;

I used Araldite Rapid to bond the stub axles into the muffs. For comparison here's the old Saltford wheels along with my replacements;

I cut a new footplate from .030" styrene, epoxied one sideframe in place, then when set fitted the wheels and drivebelt (Nigel Lawton 12mm ID belt) and epoxied the second side onto the footplate trapping the wheels in place;

The replacement motor is a Mashima 1015. I had to shorten both of the shafts, other than that its a good fit and will allow me to fit a flywheel. Here it is epoxied to the footplate, the bufferbeams now fitted as well;

 

Another view of the underside;

 

The motor leads are soldered to little tags made from scrap etch and drilled 1.8mm (10BA clearence) and are attached to the sideframes using 10BA cheesehead screws. Originally 10BA countersunk screws were supplied which the leads were soldered to. I like my idea better, more work but neater.
The front axle is slightly askew, which is partly down to the casting and partly down to a lack of finesse on my part 25ish years ago.

With thanks to Brian Meldon, whose idea it was to carry the drive to the front axle using a drive belt.

Paul.