Hi,
I’m just getting into HO model railroading with my son. At XMas I got him a really nice little fleischmann set that we’re quite happy with. A few days ago I got a used fleischmann loco and a few cars off of ebay for a really good price. However this used loco runs pretty rough compared to the new one from XMas. Well actually at first it didn’t run at all, but I took my dremel tool to the wheels and cleaned them up and got the engine running (but not very well).
After cleaning the wheels it ran pretty roughly for a while but then began to choke and gasp. So I took the whole thing apart, I figured out how to disassemble the electric motor and could see that the contacts from the electrical leads to the rotating arms were very dirty. So I again broke out the dremel and cleaned up the contacts on the rotating arms, and the spring loaded leads from the wire that brings current from the wheels.
While everything was apart I disassembled the gears that drive from the motor’s output shaft to the wheels on the loco. When the wheel gears are disconnected from the output shaft of the motor the wheels and other gears seem to turn freely. I put the engine on the tracks and ran power through the system before reassembling the gears and the motor ran without any binding and seemed to be functioning properly, but of course it had no load on it.
So I then lubed (with model train oil) and reassembled everything and the loco seemed to run fairly smooth for a couple of hours, and now it is again beginning to show signs of difficulty. Its requiring more power to get moving, and on occasion I can dial in full power and nothing happens until I give the loco a small nudge. One last bit of info, the loco seems to run better in reverse than going forward.
So, I’m hoping someone might have a few pointers for me on what I might have missed when trying to make this old engine run as smoothly as our new one. I guess I don’t expect something that is over 10 years old to work