Recently inherteted my father’s first locomotive. Its a diesel with what i believe is called a “shaft drive” (dad made a big deal of it being what ever it is as opposed to a rubber band drive). Any way it barely runs on the power pack i have. I’m not sure if its the pack or that the loco needs renovated. I’m leading toward renovated since it does move when the pack is at full power, but barely, and it sat in my grandparents basement for who knows how many decades. Anyway any ideas on how to get the thing moving again would be welcome. As well as any tips on maintance.
I have an old AC Gilbert I rescued from an auction years ago, it was a whole set with the orighinal power pack,track,cars and engine. I run this around the christamas tree every year, it is S scale I believe. I had to do surgery on the engine to get it running, so it sounds like you might have to do the same thing and clean the motor and shine up some things. Is this an HO scale model you have?
If it sat in the basement for a while rust might be the culpret. Some oil and a little cleaning might go a long way. Oil all the moving friction points. You may want to take an air hose and blow the motor and gears out.
It’s HO and i’ve oiled and cleaned it the best i can. It’s running alot better, but still draws a hell of alot of power. It also goes in spirts. It will get going then stop. I either have to tap the top, which i know is electrical since the light goes out too, or give the gears a little help moving. Any ideas or is this just part of running a 50 year old train?
Many of the old steam engines had a brass bearing plate just under the bottom cover. This provided some of the electrical pick-up. Since the engine has been stored for quite a while, this plate and the axles are likely to have oxidized and require a good cleaning. You might want to also apply wire leads to each side of the the motor’s brushes to see if the motor will run smoothly. If not, try applying alchohol to the armature (where the brushes contact). If the motor still sputters, it probably has some broken internal wires and cannot be fixed.