Just bought this set second hand and saw this thread.
Although it's old it helped me, so that is why I'm replying.
The solution is:
Use a black 4 length shaft (instead of the grey 5 length), and more importantly use a gear with 12 teeth and a gear with 20 teeth! (the combination of an 8-24-gear does not fit with an L-shaped beam later on in the building process)
A link to a nice summary:
(FYI: for me the ''making the left track running smoothly" did not work)