Hello all Me again,
am looking to get some advice as to what to do with this unit please, Purchased it from a club member some months ago and ever
since this unit will not run properly on either my layout or on the clubs layout, some times it will run for a short time and other times
it will not run at all. it has been looked at by several members over this time and we have discovered that it is shorting out in the housing where
the reversing unit is mounted to the chassis.
( i will attempt to add a drawing of this unit with part numbers listed and then try to explain the problem)


The area of concern is where part 38 , the Swivel arm is connected to the chassis.
is there any way that this can be fixed i am at a loss as to what to do here have cleaned the area have tried insulating the screw but nothing seems to work.
Hope some one can steer me in the right direction

thank you Peter

Hi Peter,

For those of us not on facebook, can you give us an idea of how you solved the problem?

Thanks!

Just in case Peter forgets, here is the facebook trail

Bob Worthington :-

The screw mounting the reversing relay is plastic, and there is a plastic washer between the black metal mount piece and the relay. This means the relay is insulated from the chassis. Also ensure the electronics are not shorting to the chassis. Like you I found the black mount piece to be somewhat loose at its attachment to the chassis and cannot be tightened.

Peter:-

thank you for this Bob, having just looked at my beats again i know that the screw holding the reversing unit to the Chassis is metalic so therein may lay the problem me thinks?

Peter :-

Looks like i have it solved thank you all for your input, ended up using a piece of insulation with a small hole and now it seems to run like a dream on my layout, will see how it goes on the clubs layout this week sometime. again thank you all for the suggestions.





Peter's answer :-

Dont want to convert any of my loco's to digital LOL only want to run analog here

Answer back from other facebooker :-

Digital engines can run on analog layout.

Peter's answer:-

yes i know but not recomended to use the old style blue transformers, which is what i have , can not afford to buy the later grey models


I know Peter won't mind me answering on his behalf as we are good club buddies ........right Pete

Fine, that's totally reasonable and understandable!
As usual, I was simply sharing what I learned many years ago as a Märklin repair man when I saw multiple 3309's coming my way , all with the same problem.
The problem will occur again and again (e.g. when you have to change brushes or the fragile low voltage bulbs) as the articulated chassis design is rather finnicky
My suggestion was only offered as a way to solve the difficulty once and for all.
Of course I probably should have guessed there were only old blue transformers involved!
Dumb me! )

My thanks go to Dusan for reposting the solution i received from usernet facebook users and i apologise for not posting the result here after receiving it.

And yes he had a go at me last night