Just wondering if anyone has tried pulling 4 aluminum cars with an MPC era single motor F3 with dummy A?? I can get a good deal on 4 Lionel Amtrak aluminum cars but want to make sure the engine can pull them before I spend money on cars. I’m replacing the 35+ year old traction bands with new tight grip ones.
I don’t want to buy the cars then find out the engine can’t pull them, and it would cost as much as the cars to replace the chassis to a dual motor frame.
Thanks!
Your best chance is to put the dummy A in front and couple the powered unit to the cars. That way the motor is pulling the train and pushing the dummy A.
Single motor will be a challenge, you will have to put the volts to it which will cause additional heat. I have the single motor Milwaukee EP-5 from the MPC era, one super dog. Very nice looking but can’t pull its shadow.
Been there, done that, and not real happy with the results. As noted above, you have to step up the voltage and the motor will get very hot. Depending on your track, you will also go through traction tires very quickly. I had a mix of tubular 0-31 and 0-42 curves at the time and found that I was replacing the traction tires on the MPC F3 and MPC EP-5 (also, single motor) about twice a year.
Eventually, I decided the best course was to retire the MPC Amtrak F3 and replace it with a twin-motored Williams F7 that I got on sale. The Williams F7 has a lot more pulling power and the can motors run on a much lower voltage, with less heat, and have flywheels. Unless you’re really intent on getting Lionel aluminum cars, you can get them from Williams as well - if you order online you can get them at a substantial discount.
Good luck!
Mike
Well I can report that the single-motored F-3 can be pretty powerful.I run a 14 car mixed -consist train around 0-42 curves and have no major problems.Yes it does get warm after about an hour but I regularly switch-out my engines so it does present a major difficulty.I’m not sure how much aluminum cars weigh or how much rolling friction the older postwar trucks generate. 
I’m currently running a very similar consist with the B&O single motor F-3 A-B-A. It actually pulls quite nicely on the O-31 loop.
The motor has been serviced with all synthetic oil & grease. All non-needle point axles have synthetic oil, including all non-powered axles of the A-B-A. This really made a difference - the dummies really glide along the rails now where before they were almost dead weight.
The axles on any passenger cars must be oiled, whether they are sintered iron(postwar type) or fast-angle(the axles are fixed to the wheels and they do drag in the trucks/coupler plates if not lubed).
Rob
statistician,
Another thing to keep in mind is that when MPC was manufacturing Lionel trains, in addition to most of their products being made of plastic, for lighter weight, they also incorporated ‘Fast Angle Wheels’. This new wheel design, along with the cars having less weight, helped the one motored engines pull a longer train of those '70’s-‘Modern Era’ type of cars, which had less drag.
Most of the ‘PostWar Era’ one motored engines were a little stronger, than the ‘70’s Modern Era’ one motored engines, enabling the ‘PostWar’ engines to pull some of the ‘PostWar’ cars which were heavy and had older wheels, axles and trucks, which caused drag.
Some of the ‘PostWar’ one motored engines also had ‘Magne-Traction’, as opposed to the ‘70’s Modern Era’ one motored engines with ‘Traction Tires.’
I Hope This Helps,
Ralph
Rob can you give more details about the synthetic oil that you use?I would like to try it on both the powered and unpowered locos of my Sante Fe F-3 ABA units!
Sure - it’s very simple.
Mobil 1 5W-30 on axles, bearings, & bushings, Lucas Red 'N Tacky #2 on gears.
I do use the Lucas on some armature shafts - top & bottom - in cases where it won’t get out and/or hard to get to. Examples would be lower bearing plates where they are closed/not open to the track, and MPC & later era brush plates with the pre-load set screw on top.
The Lucas can also be used on 2025/675/224/1666/2026 and the like spur gear drive steamers that squeal a bit when the armature bushings wear to the point that they don’t hold oil well anymore. It’s a good stopgap measure that helps until you can get the motor bushings replaced/repaired.
Rob
One question;some of the gears on my MPC F-3 are plastic wil the red-n-tacky harm them?
No.
I think the gears on the F-3’s are Nylon, anyway.
Rob