Two of these locos (little used) will not run. They ran fine from the box for months and were put off the tracks for several months. The lights on the layout dim and the engines will not run. I tried the simple things like cleaning the wheels and putting a drop of lube at the bearings but no luck. I tried to dissamble but there are wires that have to be desoldered so I stopped. Any ideas? Thanks ,Strom
maybe it’s not the engines poosibly a fualt in your track somewhere?
I have a LL GP-9 and you don’t have to remove any wires to take the shell off. Take off both couplers and you should find two small screws on the bottom centerish. There may also be a screw at each end. I am going from memory. Basically take any screw off you see on the bottom and the shell should slide up and off. It may be alittle tight but it should slide off. Rotate the flywheels to see if they are frozen or bound. Maybe put it on the track apply power and rotate flywheel with your finger and see it if gets it moving.
was just thinking does this happen with any loco you put on the track or just these two GP-9’s. If it is something that happens with just these two and not other locos then that would be odd. The chance of two locos having a short while in the box is low I would think. However if these are your only locos then I would suspect a track/wiring problem. Hope this helps. If not try something and let us know of any additional info that might help figure this out.
Terry
Could these have cracked gears? Or doed that prohibit it from even turning a wheel?
Alec
If the lights light up(dim), it is getting power. Either the motor brushes are corroded from sitting in the box, or maybe you have a bad light board. As mentioned, the shell comes off after removing the couplers and the body mounting screws under them. Do not remove screws that may be in the fuel tank area - all you will get is a loose motor! Once you have the shell off, put one engine on the track and give it power(make sure the lights are still working). Spin the motor/flywheels to see it it trys to turn over. Of the motor spins, but is not getting power, you will have to back track to the light board to see where it lost power. That ‘dim’ headlight bothers me. Either you have a short, or the light board has a burned out/leaking diode…
Jim
Strange. It’s something basic like running a DC engine on DCC.
What changes were made to anything during the ’ several months’ holding period?
I think Don’s on the right track. One locomotive, working fine, stored for a few months, and developing a problem, while nothing was done to it or with it, would be a strange thing, a rare thing, something that lies at the edge of a probability curve.
Two of them exhibiting the exact same strange behavior at once? The odds of that are off the charts. Something happened to those two locomotives together, like being lubed with superglue, or else something happened to the track, and is affecting both locomotives.
From experience with my P2K GP9, it is one of the power hungriest locomotives in the fleet. For any given throttle setting, it moves slower than any other diesel. Therefore dirty track, or a trickle short circuit between the rails is going to affect it first. Switching from a large and powerful power pack to a smaller weaker one might cause such a probem too.
Take them apart if you must, but I suspect that since they have been sealed all along, whatever is causing this is not inside the shell.
The first thing I’d do is find a known good locomotivew for comparison testing. See how well the good one moves at low speed. If you can’t get consistent speed at any throttle setting, you have electrical problems with the track, an intermittant short, or intermittant conductivity, or a problem inside the power pack.
Hook a different power pack up to one section of flextrack away from the layout, and test all three. The results begin to isolate what must be happening from what is not happening, allowing you to conduct further testing to find the problem. If you don’t have a second power pack, hook the current one to an isolated section of track, while it is completely disconnected from the layout. If you get good performance then, you will need to look at the layout wiring.
I can only think of two things that could happen to a matched pair of locos in storage that would be internal, one bad lube melted or cracked the gears, with teeth jammed