It seems that there have been a lot of threads and questions recently from folks coming back into the hobby after long periods of hiatus. I think it is great to see so many questions from excited people looking to resurrect old locomotives and rolling stock.
This weekend I had one of those experiences that I thought was worth sharing.
I had a brand new, never run LifeLike Proto 2000 SD9 (HO scale) that I had picked up from the “sale” shelves at the LHS. I purchased it months ago and it sat on my table awaiting a DCC install. I think these date to the early 2000’s so it is most likely approaching 10 years of sitting in a box.
I pride myself in doing a bang-up-job with my DCC installs so this one got a complete hard wire installation with LED for lights. The wiring just beautiful all neat and held in place with Kapton tape.
I FORGOT A GOLDEN RULE…
Make sure the darn thing runs on DC before installing a decoder!
Using Decoder Pro on my Digitrax PR3 program track the decoder programmed up just fine, no shorts, not that I expected any problems.
Off to the track for maiden voyage…nothing…just a buzz from the motor, lights working perfectly as they should but no movement at all!
Turns out that the grease in the truck towers had solidified and was almost like set adhesive. In particular the square bearings that are either side of the spiral bevel gear were rock solid! It took me grasping them with a flat nose plier to get them to move. No wonder the motor would not turn. (Of course this meant removing all the neat wiring [banghead] )
A quick soak in some degrease, and then a nice lube job and all is working great.
So my advice, as you drag your prized old locos from the attic, make sure you clean and lube them. Old grease may be a real problem otherwise. Clean the wheels and contacts and give these o
I certainly appreciate this excellent reminder. I won this early run Rio Grande P2K SD9 on ebay a year or two back, new in the box. (got the Burlington SD9 shell on another auction, earlier)
To this date I have not taken the chassis out of the box to test it on the track. I’m planning to install DCC in it, so it will have to be the hard wired. I’ll make certain to disassemble the trucks and clean out the old lubricants, which may likely be dried out, and relube it with the Labelle grease. I also plan on replacing the factory bulbs with gold-white LED lights.
Antonio, funny you should be one to respond to this thread. When I was trying to find a web reference for the age of the loco a Google search resulted in this thread http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/t/28499.aspx from 2005! Ironically my SD9 is a CNW loco, just what the poster was looking for.
Simon: Your advice is right on the money. I had the same problem with a couple of E units. I don’t know what lubricants were used on them but they could double as glue!
Very good advice and thanks for the reminder. It’s always tempting to skip a step in the process, even if you remember the steps. All my locos are pre 2000, and the decoders I’ve installed are all hard wired of course. I’m not up to speed on the re-lube process, but obviously it makes good sense. So far my decoder installs have been successful ( three for three) and as long as the engines ran smoothly and quietly on DC I assume they’re ok.
I fully agree with this warning and will even add to it…every single locomotive should be run on DC for a while before installing a decoder.I’ve learned this the hard way last year with a brand new (late production) N scale Kato GS4.I had just purchased it and had planned installing a Tsunami into it so I went forward doing it.Install not very easy but not too bad either.When finished,set the loco on track,throttled up and everything goes fine.After a few laps,I decided to check how well it would handle slow speed crawl…a couple of starts and then…no more movement.Sounds were going strong but the beast wouldn’t move anymore.Check wiring to no avail,try then try again…still dead.
So I pulled the Tsunami out to try to run it on DC…supply breaker pops off.Turn the motor by hand a little and the loco gets going…stop it again…restart a few times…then once again…breaker pops off.The motor had a shorted spot somewhere inside that happened only when it was stopped on this exact spot and didn’t show after movement was initiated.A new motor corrected this.I wouldn’t have expected this from a Kato but…
So now every loco old or new gets a careful test before converting and some time in the future I’ll send the TSU-750 for repair when budget allows.
I had collected rolling stock for years before ever having a place where I could run it, so it’s a good thing that my own rule is clean, inspect and lube EVERYTHING before attempting to put it into service on the layout. Some of my non-powered rollong stock was as bad or worse than the worst congealed-lube locomotive.
Happily, I haven’t run into anything that didn’t respond to a simple cleanup and some comparatively minor adjustments or parts replacements. OTOH, the one and only occasion when I put unchecked, untested rolling stock in service was an unmitigated disaster! Never again…
I have found that some greases and oils are a mess or a near solid mass in storage for as short a period as 3 years! Fortunately, I switched from HO to HOn3 so my HO locos stored for the past 15 years will proably remain locked up. I will pull out my three brass HO steam engines and tune them up on a test track, though. The modern synthetic lubricants are much better in many instances provided they play nice with the old plastic gearing on some those older cheap locos.
With regard to the initial break in of a DC engine… now that my layout is wired for DCC I limit the break in run to a short section of track wired with a DC power supply. My Digitrax system will allow a non-decoder equipped loco to be run as analog adress 00. I have often read that this should be avoided and not leave one idle for any length of time. But would it be a good idea to run the engine as described to serve as a break in?
Rdrr I usually do just that and run my locos on 00 using my Zephyr. I have a number of DC locos that I will never convert to DCC because they are too old. I have never had a problem with a single loco. Certainly not the burned up motor. I’m not 100% convinced that this is not an urban legend.
To just run it won’t harm it as long as it’s not allowed to run for hours. A regular DC loco can even be run as part of a DCC consist on the Zephyr. When it comes to a DC loco just sitting on DCC powered track yes it will burn up the motor. I’ve done it.
The tolerance of a DC loco motor to overheating caused by sitting without moving on DCC powered track depends on the motor design and mass as well as on the mass of metal surrounding the motor which can act as a heat sink.
Some locos may sit on DCC for longer periods without a problem, while others will not - like one of my Russian Decapods, still waiting a decoder install, which sat on DCC powered track for less than 15 minutes while I was distracted - zap! - one thoroughly burned out motor.
If you’re going to put a DC loco on DCC powered track using address 00, get it moving promptly and avoid prolonged running times!
