Brio Electric Locomotive Cleaning
We have a problem with an excess of cat and dog hair in our house (next pet will be hairless, dog or cat). A further problem is that the hair ends up tangled in Henry's Brio electric locomotive, causing balky or no movement. So here is how I clean a Brio electric locomotive.
Remove the battery cover and battery
Grind the tip of an Allen wrench so it has a triangular tip that matches the screw heads on the underside of the train. It doesn't take much and a slight taper will help it lock into the screw so it doesn't strip the screw. They do not have a lot of torque and are easy to remove.
Invert the locomotive on a block and remove the screws. Notice the "Do Not Remove" warning sticker. Ignore it, it's a $15.00 toy and it will clog up all the time. Swedish engineering does not take poor housekeeping into consideration when designing a child's toy. I guess all the engineers have housekeepers. Elitist jerks! Making poor women slave away in drudgery so that their toys will run without a hitch.
See the geartrain, upside down. Notice all the hairs wrapped up in the gear train.
The bottom half of the train. You need to move the gear clusters over to it, starting with the drive wheel axle and continuing in order from back to front. Clean each gear cluster of hair and dirt as you go. If the gears fall off of a particular cluster, thank your lucky stars that you already have a digital picture. This is a good time to mention taking pictures as you go. The gear clusters will obviously need to be revolved 180 degrees so that they are a mirror image of the placement on the top half. (In other words, don't just move them over, flip them over)
Here the gears have been cleaned and replaced in the bottom half.
Here is another view of the completed assembly of the bottom half.
The ball of hair I removed and the tip of the Allen wrench.
Henry helps put the battery compartment back on.
All Done!
Remove the battery cover and battery
Grind the tip of an Allen wrench so it has a triangular tip that matches the screw heads on the underside of the train. It doesn't take much and a slight taper will help it lock into the screw so it doesn't strip the screw. They do not have a lot of torque and are easy to remove.
Invert the locomotive on a block and remove the screws. Notice the "Do Not Remove" warning sticker. Ignore it, it's a $15.00 toy and it will clog up all the time. Swedish engineering does not take poor housekeeping into consideration when designing a child's toy. I guess all the engineers have housekeepers. Elitist jerks! Making poor women slave away in drudgery so that their toys will run without a hitch.
See the geartrain, upside down. Notice all the hairs wrapped up in the gear train.
The bottom half of the train. You need to move the gear clusters over to it, starting with the drive wheel axle and continuing in order from back to front. Clean each gear cluster of hair and dirt as you go. If the gears fall off of a particular cluster, thank your lucky stars that you already have a digital picture. This is a good time to mention taking pictures as you go. The gear clusters will obviously need to be revolved 180 degrees so that they are a mirror image of the placement on the top half. (In other words, don't just move them over, flip them over)
Here the gears have been cleaned and replaced in the bottom half.
Here is another view of the completed assembly of the bottom half.
The ball of hair I removed and the tip of the Allen wrench.
Henry helps put the battery compartment back on.
All Done!
posted by Felice Luftschein at 11:42 AM
21 Comments:
ONLY you, Nick, could make the cleaning of the inside of a toy into fascinating reading. Me, I would just chuck the toy if it clogs.
Denise
If it won't work after I try to fix it, it gets chucked, but you have to try, why else do you have those opposable thumbs?
Your directions were perfect and 'saved the day' for me.
On my nephew's 7th birthday, tried to be helpful and replace worn batteries. Had no warning sticker to tell me not to take the 4 screws out of the bottom. Gears fell everywhere.
Ironically, the 7 year old was fine with an apology and promise to fix/replace the engine. The 41 year old (dad) was not.
Found your blog after 2 hours of searching, and now the engine is working better than it ever did.
Will be a hero to my nephew tomorrow morning, and his dad (my brother) will be speaking to me again.
Many thanks.
Glad I could help, Anonymous!
Tell your nephew never to fear taking things apart.
thank u very much my children had broken the train and spent hours trying to put the cogs back in diffrent ways to no avail found this and done in minutes a life saver my children will be happy and more carefull next time well pleased regards Angela.......
Many thanks! Like others, we undid the Phillips screws trying to change the battery, then realized the job had grown. And of course one gear flipped. Your blog & pics saved the day here, too. If we ever run into trouble again, we'll know to ask Henry & co, engineers. ...John
Spent an hour trying to figure out how to change the battery on my son's engine. found your blog and was able to get it done!
thanks
Thanks very much for this; I saw it a while ago and thought "must try that". When I did, some of the gears fell out as I was opening the train, so your photo really really helped :-) The following comments;
1) there's one of the screws that needs to be in and tight before you can test the gears.
2) if the engine the wrong way after closing, you have put the motor in the wrong way up. Just turn it over.
3) A Torx T-7 scredriver (search google) worked just great for me. No need to file it at all.
Michael
BOTH of my son's two battery powered BRIO locomotives have died because of a defective gear design. In each, a small gear has split and will no longer mesh with the adjacent gear. Has anyone been able to fix this problem?
BrokenBrio,
Do you have a picture of the gear in question? Then I can diagnose the problem better.
I suspect, given that the gears are molded plastic (some sort of nylon?) that fixing them easily is likely out of the question. If I were you I would contact Brio and ask for replacement gears.
Useful site! It helped me to open and repair my sons broken Brio Locomotive. It was still quite new and had not collected much hair yet. The cause of the malfunction was a bad connection between the upper part of the train (containing the switch and battery compartment) and the bottom part (containing motor, gears etc.). The two pins next to the front wheels on the green piece on the bottom part need to connect to two metallic clips on the top part (contact is made when closing the locomotive with the triangular screws). Bending those clips fixed the connection. Alternatively, additional wires might be placed and soldered to improve the contact.
Can you give me advice, how to put those three shafts on the right positions? It seems also that some of my cogs only spin around the shaft and also - the engine can't get "enough" power to spin the system, alltough I have replaced a new battery. The motor will run normally, but when assemled, the engine gives only a dim light but nothing more. Thank you for your help.
First, double check that the new battery has enough charge. Always check the simplest thing first.
Take it apart again and make sure the axles fit into the grooves they ride in. Some of the gears are freewheeling around the shafts, but it's possible some that are meant to be fixed in place have worn, in which case you are probably better of getting a new loco, unless you can figure out which are supposed to be fixed and cement them in place with some superglue.
Double check that you have eliminated all clogs, hair, etc. Try lubing eveything lightly with some oil.
Make sure the battery contacts are clean and make good contact.
Thanks tons for the post. Like some other readers, I didn't know what kind of battery the engine takes, and where to find it...
BTW I am a DIYourselfer who is making a living by recording music at home..., so I found your other articles very interesting.
http://andrewrrogers.com/
I arrived home last evening to have my husband ask, "Tell me what happened to the engine." The engine lay disassembled on the kitchen counter. My first reply was, "The wheels fell off?" He asked me to think about a two-year-old and rubber rimmed wheels. I knew immediately it had gotten tangled in my daughter's hair. As he unscrewed the base, it had sprung apart faster than he could memorize what it looked like. I promised to look at and I did so tonight. One search, your web-site and 5 minutes did it all! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!
Thank you so so much for posting this easy to follow solution. We inherited this brio train from a 16 year old cousin who had not used it in at least 12 years. Then when I brilliantly took off the bottom panel seeking to change the battery, all the gears came out. I could not figure it out...and thanks to you, my son is happy (and therefore so are we!!!). Thank you for so much help!
If I may ever be of service to you, please let me know.
Larry Langs
www.feldmanllp.com
Thanks for the photos, advice, etc.
Brio train engine opened with tool as described.
Once loosened, straight screwdriver worked.
The issue turned out to be corrosion.
Due to battery left too long.
WD-40 and cleaning did the trick.
Thanks again.
My wife removed the four screws in an attempt to replace the battery, which left me with a handfull of gears and no clue of how to put it together. Your pictures saved my day.
hi. i might be being stupid but i have a brio train for my son and cannot work out how to open it to change the batteries. is there anyone that can explain it to me? does the top pop off or do i have to undo loads of screws? thanks in advance
There should be a screw that has a slotted or phillips head on the top (on this locomotive it was where the smokestack is) or bottom that opens the battery compartment. Just one screw. The screws that hold the loco together are probably triangular head and shouldn't be removed.
Two good things from your blog: 1-I was able to put the train back together again 2- I realized I'm not the only one who saw the 4 screws and thought they held the battery compartment. I also inherited the set, and it no longer has a warning sticker like yours, and the BRIO sticker on the side was slit, showing me that somebody else had taken it apart that way, so I did not even look for the screw in the smokestack, but rather I opened the 4 screws on the bottom. Three plastic gears promptly fell out. At first I thought it was the battery compartment and somebody had put in three gears that didn't belong, but I could not find any battery contacts, so I knew there had to be something else gong on. Your post saved the day! My kids will be so excited in the morning....
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