I bought a new DC Piko Diesellock BR 218 H0 a year ago. It had excellent slow-speed performance. It started at a low voltage and had almost no noise. I kept it packed for one year. Yesterday, when I powered it on, it took high voltage to start, and then moderate voltage. The universal cardon gear was clicking and moving back and forth
, and the same was happening with the axle of the top gear connected with the cardon gear (BR 218 2).
I don’t know where the problem is. Do I need to disassemble the cardon gear and the truck (bogie) to lubricate these? If yes, I do not know how to disassemble the universal cardon gear and the truck (bogie). I am sorry that I could not find it on Google, and the user manual is not very helpful. Can someone help me find me how to solve this problem? I love this Loco.
To hazard a guess, there is dried grease in blobs on the gears inside the tower. Since the tower is plastic, I wouldn’t try applying solvent or oil to soften it up – find out the correct way to disconnect the trucks from the driveshafts and chassis, open up the case, and thoroughly clean any grease or other material from the gearing (including down in the roots of the teeth).
I would relubricate with LaBelle grease, but others may advise using different products or approaches. Do not use heavy grease application as if this were a 1:1 traction-motor gearcase loaded with crater! A thin film on the mating contact surfaces is enough, and use proper oil on the gear axes.
I don’t think there are many Piko experts here (I certainly am not one!) so you’ll want to take clear macro pictures of the truck components and how they fit into the tower. I’ll assume that you have checked the motor, including what happens if you push axially on its shaft while the motor is running, and that there is no problem with the driveline binding up to the tower.
On general principles, look for cracked or off-center gears. I am thinking that you have a worm in there somewhere, and its engagement is related to the binding. You might reassemble the truck without the worm as a quick test that ‘the rest of the gearing’ is running true, but that still won’t assure you that the gearing will handle power or higher torque. For example if one of the gears has a damaged axis, or one of its bearings has too much play, the gear might cock under load whereas it happily cogs along when back driven (or the worm is installed and turned by hand on the bench)
Be sure all the gears pressed on shafts are at the right distance on the shaft. I doubt you will find this in any printed reference material. Check and if necessary shim the ‘end-shake’ of the worm(s).
I made up a universal that could be chucked in a handpiece or Dremel to turn gearboxes at higher speed (while I could load each pair of wheels with a fingertip of the other hand). You’ve probably already done this, but if you haven’t, it’s more useful than having to reassemble everything just to test a truck under load.
