I have this engine apart three times now with out a hitch replacing center gears, I drag heavy freight and it has seen 200 hours plus of rail time. This time around I had to replaces the engine wiring harness.
That is the old harness I replaced, note the bad solder joint on the left side.
This time around things did not go smoothly, in fact it is jerky? I finished reassembly at K-10 Model trains, I lost a screw that held down one side of the motor. We where using a Super Chief DCC with speed steep of 128, engine did not start moving till step 38. Sound was fine but the engine moved, stalled, moved, stalled and moved. At a higher setting jerks where gone (not counting me) sound was fine till I blew the whistle. It was much quieter than normal, it was a quick blast. Then I held the button down and got a hoot, HOOT, hoot, HOOT, hoot, HOOT. Normally that is a sign of a over load, am I right?
Whistle did the same thing with the engine not moving as well?
Couple weeks ago before I installed the body I spun the flywheel and wheels did spin with out binding. Sunday I will pull the body again and double check. When routing the head light wires I did pinch them under the boiler (side question, how do you get the plug thought that small a-s hole anyway? First harness I cut the wires and solder) I don’t see any bare wire, then I notched the plate that connects the cylinders so the wires are not being pinched.
Beside the headlight wires only thing I am unsure of is the red wire from the board. It screws to the chassis under the motor. There is a red pieces of cardboard (for lack of a better terms) that I assume isolates the motor from the red wire that is screwed to the chassis. Installed the red wire with the screw, then red cardoard th