# Can motor drive shaft material



## Mister Bill (Jan 30, 2014)

I live in a small town and need to find a source of flexible tubing to use as a drive shaft between a Mashima can motor and Rivarossi drive gear.

I tried some weed eater tubing, but it fails under stress.

Any ideas?

Surgical tubing? What size?

Bill


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## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

How about a tightly wound spring. Epoxy the ends?


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## thedoc (Oct 15, 2015)

Try model airplane fuel line in the smallest size, if there is a long space between the end of the moror shaft and the gearbox shaft, use a length of brass rod in the middle of the tubing, just be sure there is a little space at each end. When the tubing is installed correctly there should be no tension pushing the shafts apart or pulling them together, if you grasp the tubing you should be able to move both shafts together with the same amount of slack that you started with.


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

I have used fuel tubing for RC cars / planes and air lines for fish tanks.


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## gunrunnerjohn (Nov 10, 2010)

I like T-Man's suggestion. You can find some fairly beefy springs that should do the trick fairly easily.


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## Mister Bill (Jan 30, 2014)

Great idea, Doc.

I bought an engine with a can motor already installed. It looked to use surgical tubing.

Our drug store did not carry anything like that.

When I tried to build one on my own, I could not find any material in my small town.

There are a few plane enthusiasts here. I will just have to find someone.

Bill


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## tkruger (Jan 18, 2009)

Mister Bill said:


> Great idea, Doc.
> 
> I bought an engine with a can motor already installed. It looked to use surgical tubing.
> 
> ...


Try a pet store for aquarium air line tubing. Only difference to that and the fuel line is that one will break down with petroleum based fluids.


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## wvgca (Jan 21, 2013)

another alternative is to check with your pharmacy for oxygen tank breather lines, the same as the ones the hospital uses and go under your nose ... they are usually free as well, and have two sizes of hose, possibly a canadian tire or similar for fuel line, a place that services motorcycles / quads / small engines will have a better grade of hose used for primer lines and such, the better grades of tubing are usually more flexible and are sometimes coloured pink or green , and are sometimes referred to as silicone tubing..the regular clear poly tubing will get harder in a couple of years of usage..


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## Peter Herron (Jun 30, 2015)

*Some fixit guy for locomotives swears.........*

.....by this product. Toyota vacuum line. Part # 90999-92003 See link below.

http://www.toyotapart.com/90999-92003.html

I have not yet tried it but I have see it referred to more than once.

Peter


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## Mister Bill (Jan 30, 2014)

Thanks, Peter


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## Peter Herron (Jun 30, 2015)

*Mr Bill, if you do try it, please........*

...........post if it was a success. I am curious although most of my motor and gearbox shafts are larger as I model in O scale 2 rail. Might work on the smaller On30 locos.

Peter


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## Mister Bill (Jan 30, 2014)

No one in my town sells fish tank lines or medical tubing in that small of a diameter.

I have had moderate success with a 1/16 Weedeater fuel line. Everyone has that in a variety of sizes.

Home Depot has more substantial fuel lines for $5.

I am going to try Toyota next, but there is no Toyota dealer in my town. I will try an auto parts house.

I am getting there! 

The main problem is that the Rivarossi gear shaft has a notched out section and the shaft is not perfectly round and the tubing cannot get a good grip.

I tried Loctite, but some of it trickled into the gear housing and froze up the gear train. That took a few days to figure out.

Don't try that at home.

Bill


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## thedoc (Oct 15, 2015)

You could try the mail-order suppliers of RC model airplanes. If you call on the phone to order they should be able to tell you what the ID of the tubing is. Get something slightly smaller than your shafts. Silicone (sometimes spelled 'silicon') tubing is very flexible, some of the other tubing is more stiff and has a curve to it, making straight connections a problem. EBay has over 100 listings for silicon tubing but you need to be careful to get the correct size. Du-Bro, Sullivan, SIG, and SONIC-TRONICS, are good brands that I sold at one time, there are other brands, but these I am familiar with. For HO scale can motors with a 2 mm shaft, there is a small size tubing for 1/2 A cox motors, at 1.7 mm ID which should work well.


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## PanelDeland (Oct 3, 2015)

You might try a piece of Shrink tubing on the Rivarossi shaft to get the tubing to fit and stay tight enough to work.


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## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

I remotored a Pere Marquette and got a complete kit.

This is the thread Chino Backshop was the vendor four years back.










Again this is an old post with no recent information.


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## thedoc (Oct 15, 2015)

I once remotored the MDC Shay coffee grinder, with a Sagami 14-25 can motor and NWSL gears in my own gearbox. You couldn't hear it running till you got to almost full throttle.


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## thedoc (Oct 15, 2015)

I had a Mantua 2-6-6-2 logging engine that I fitted a Mantua 2-8-2 boiler and detailed to resemble a WM 2-6-6-2. I was using an MDC tender. My intention was to later install a can motor but once I ran it and found it to be very smooth and quiet I decided to just let the original motor in it.


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## Ed Gerken (Jan 23, 2012)

Maybe try lawn/garden or chainsaw repair shops? My ancient Stihl has some small diameter tubing that's been in fuel and oil plus grundge for decades.

My wife's dad was on oxygen his last few years and he gave us lots of the old tubing. It's not round inside, but has three internal ribs. It might grip the Rivarossi shaft.

Springs are viable as well. Placed on the outside of tubing it would act as strain relief, much like you see on better-grade garden water hoses.

Send me a PM with your address and I'll pop a few inches of this'n'that into an envelope and mail it to ya. I'm a long-time scrounger and hoarder of bits like this. 

-Ed


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## thedoc (Oct 15, 2015)

Ed Gerken said:


> Maybe try lawn/garden or chainsaw repair shops? My ancient Stihl has some small diameter tubing that's been in fuel and oil plus grundge for decades.
> 
> My wife's dad was on oxygen his last few years and he gave us lots of the old tubing. It's not round inside, but has three internal ribs. It might grip the Rivarossi shaft.
> 
> ...


I'm like that too, I'm always setting things back saying, "I might have a use for that, someday". But my Dad had me beat, if he was working on something and needed a part, he would find a source and then instead of buying just a few more than he needed, he'd buy a gross and put them away for future use.


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## Ed Gerken (Jan 23, 2012)

I'll be gathering a few samples for Bill to try and maybe we'll get lucky. Anyone have a pic of where the tubing is installed, so I can guess more accurately? No sense sending him things that wouldn't work.

Found a pic on the DCCwiki, is it something like this? http://www.dccwiki.com/Remotor










Or like this one, with the motor in the tender and drives in the engine? http://www.shastasprings.com/repower/guide_to_repowering_and_regearing.htm










Obviously, the tender/engine version takes a longer tube, so maybe all I'm asking is how long does it need to be? I've already gathered some 17-odd candidates, but some may be too short to be useable. 

Ok, so maybe we took the scenic route, but with trains, that's what we aim for right? :lol:

-Ed


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## Mister Bill (Jan 30, 2014)

Ed, # 1 is real close.

I have been using about 1 inch of tubing.

Bill


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## Ed Gerken (Jan 23, 2012)

I think we can fix you up! I dug out a can motor to try my tubing bits. Many of them are insulation stripped off wires. An old phone cable's outer jacket was molded around the four conductors and it has an internal cross-section like a 4-leaf clover.

Several will fit inside a larger tube. This might act as a bushing or the double-wall tube made from two could be stronger than just one tube. Or try adding heatshrink to beef it up.

Another thing to try is adding a bit of tape on the shaft to enlarge it a bit. It would only take enough tape to go around the shaft a few turns.

The ink tube from an old ballpoint pen is also a close fit and the spring might work as a strain relief.

Some may be too tight but the ends can be enlarged a bit by heating briefly with a lighter and forcing it onto something with a tapered end to widen the opening.

-Ed


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## Ed Gerken (Jan 23, 2012)

Did the tubing I sent help any? Just curious if you've had time to check it out again. Thanks!
-Ed


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## Mister Bill (Jan 30, 2014)

Ed,
One is working nicely.

I have another new motor "in the mail" from A-Line. Boy, they are slow shippers.

I will use your tubes on several other motors as I tune them up or when they fail.

Thanks, again.

Bill.


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## Mister Bill (Jan 30, 2014)

I ordered the Toyota vacuum line, but it is way too big for a Rivarossi. You could get two Rivarossi shafts in there. It is also about as round as a #2 pencil.

It is probably the right idea but the wrong part number.

Bill


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## Peter Herron (Jun 30, 2015)

Sorry, Mr. Bill. 

I might have gotten the info off an O scale forum. I never ordered it so I did not have the sizing. What is your shaft diameter? I have some very small id neoprene tubing that might work for you. It fits nicely over a 5/64th tube and would probably go over a 1/8" shaft. PM me your address if you think it might work. I have been using it for fuel hose in O scale.

Peter


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## Mister Bill (Jan 30, 2014)

I think the shaft is 2 mm, but the shaft to the worm gear is notched out further, making it more difficult.

I found a source in A-Line ProtoPower West with a selection of couplings. It is in the mail.

bill


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## thedoc (Oct 15, 2015)

Ed Gerken said:


> Obviously, the tender/engine version takes a longer tube, so maybe all I'm asking is how long does it need to be?
> -Ed


I'm going to go completely off the wall here, and suggest a possible answer. Remove the engine boiler and the tender shell, and use that odd looking piece of equipment you might have somewhere on your workbench, a ruler or tape measure, and actually measure the length that you need. I know this is really a radical idea, but it might work.


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## rrgrassi (May 3, 2012)

When I remotored my Riv Cab Forward, I used silicon fuel line and a piece of aluminum tubing. The silicone slid into the aluminum tube, and I lightly crimped the aluminum tube and silicone to the Riv notched shaft. It has been almost two years and no issues.


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