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I have a PW and a brand new lionel UCS track and both are making my 726 berk stop as it passes over them. The power stays the same…no shorts…just trips into nuetral. I hit the direction button and it runs again. My other engines have no trouble with UCS tracks. Any ideas of what the problem is???
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When I ran my PW 397 coal loader a few weeks ago it worked perfectly. I packed it up carefully and moved it to my dads house. Now it doesnt run correctly! The coal doesnt climb the ramp as it should. Instead it shifts to the right side at the front of the red platform and falls of the side or just stays in place.
I tried to switch the wires and made sure nothing was jamed under the red platform, but nothing different. The only difference is that I am using a KW this time and used a small starter set transformer when it was working ok. Didnt think that would make a difference. Any thoughts? Thanks as always!
Make sure the ucs track is clean and the magnet is even with the track. If its sticking up,push it down till its even. the pickup roller might jump just enough to touch the frame causing a temp. short. If you find a fix for the coal loader let me know, mine does what yours is doing and I have never got it to work. I tried one at the train store and it does the same thing.
It seems like one of the pickups isn’t working. They’re both on the same assembly; so it can’t be a broken wire. See if you can find any reason why they aren’t both conducting. It also might be that one of them is sticking in the up position and the roller not following the rail consistently.
It sounds like the cam followers might be out of adjustment on your 397.
On the drive shaft, there are two cams, one on each side, each of which has two lobes. These lobes strike followers on metal plates which are attached to the red bin. As the cams strike, the tray jumps forward, then is pulled back by a spring attached to the middle of the tray.
In order for things to work properly, the cams have to hit at exactly the same. If they don’t, you can get the sort of thing you’re describing.
The solution is to adjust the cam follower, something which can be done without disasembly. Basically, you need to locate the cam follower on the side that the coal is piling up on-it’s the plate attached toward the back of the bin. Once you locate the follower, place a screwdriver on it, and strike the screwdriver with a hammer. Then, try it again. Normally, once will be plently to get things back into place.
thanks guys. Im going to try your ideas and will let you know of the results tomorrow.
Try cleaning the center roller pickups as these may be dirty as well. Another thing it could be is that the UCS track spacing is too long for your 726 Berk. A tip that may work is to add an extra power lead from a frieght car or passenger car behind the locomotive, need to get a power contact roller from a parts dealer that will just snap into place on the truck assembly on the frieght car.
Lee F.
I tried hitting the cam follower once and had to buy a new bin.changed the cams,changed the bushings, still runs the same way.
Another thing you can try with the 726/736 is put tape on the bottom of the engine so the rollers can’t touch the bare frame.
well, I tried the 397 trick with adjusting the cam and it worked great! The thing runs as smooth as ever. Thanks for the great tip.
I like the idea of the electrical tape. I also noticed that the metal base was bare and wondered if it was the cause. Could this be causing a quick short by pushing the roller to high as it crosses the UCS? Im going to give that a try.