Can anyone tell me what acceptable motor noise is? I just got a P2K GP30 High Hood (DCC w/sound, I&O) and the motor noise is much greater than my Atlas Classic GP7. Will breaking it in help? Do P2K’s generally have noisey motors? (I guess the noise could be gear noise.) This is only my second real engine, so I don’t have much of a reference.
Thanks!
I do not have much background but I have reciently purchased 2 P2K GP38-2s and they are impressiable quiet. I have read on these forums that sometimes the P2Ks will need to be lubericated when you purchase them. Try that first then see where that leaves you. Hope this helps. Mike
Thanks for the reply. I’ll see if that helps - although I was having a little trouble removing the shell body from the chassis!
To remove the shell you need to remove 4 screws. 2 hold the couplers and the other 2 are situated ahead of the fuel tank just under the ends of the front truck. The shell should just pull off easily. BTW, mine runs very, very quiet. Just a drop or two of oil on the worm gear should quiet things down nicely.
I’ve found that many of the earlier P2K Geeps have a lubrication problem right from the factory. While the gearcases literally drip from the axles with excess lubricant, the bushings in the gear towers themselves are dry. It doesn’t take much running in this condition to burn out those bushings.
I don’t own any of their newer production (Geeps or otherwise) so I don’t know if they are still shipped in this condition. It will be interesting to see how Wathers quality control deals with this.
Anyway, my suggestion and what I’ve done with all my P2K Geeps, is to completely disassemble the gearbox, clean out the factory lubricant, and re-lube with a quality lube. I use Aero-car Gel on the gears and their Heavy-Duty bearing lube on the gear tower bushings. Other folks have their favorite lube products, and those will also work. The important thing is to get something on those bushings!
HTH,
Steve
P.S. In my opinion, the Atlas driveline is consistantly higher-quality, and therefore out of the box will usually be quieter than the P2K. But with a little work the P2K’s can be good runners. Again, it will be interesting to see if the new owners’ QC has any effect.
Thanks for the info! I was able to get the shell off - mostly I was just being too gentle. To oil the worm gear do I have to disassemble the entire engine - remove the decoder, etc? Or does the weight pull off too? The instructions in the “manual” aren’t clear on removing the weight. I was worried about doing too much in case it’s something that I should return the engine about.
As far as I know, there are two screws that hold the weight on. You have to remove the coupler pads to get to them, as they are directly beneath the pads. If you are very careful, you shouldn’t have to remove the decoder, but if it’s a plug-in decoder, you may want to remove it anyway. My P2K GP30 is an analog unit, so your decoder is where the lightboard would be in the analog unit.
Some of the P2K Geeps suffered from a problem with cracked gears. I’ve got a GP-9 that had that problem. I contacted Walthers, and they sent me a new set free of charge, as soon as they were available. If you e-mail Walthers, they can tell you if your model used the problem gear set, and if so, they’ll send you a new set of gears. Replacing them is an easy 10-minute job.
It took you 10 minutes? It only took me 5. [(-D]
Good info. I sent a request to Walthers and will see what they say.
I guess it’s a good time to head to the LHS and get some lube and stuff - with only two engines, I haven’t picked up any yet.
The lube I use is called Trinity. It’s made for R/C cars and is plastic compatible. It works very well.
I use Labelle oil and lube. I’m sure it’s rediculously overpriced, but it’s made for trains, and it gives me a chance to give a little bit back to my LHS. So far, so good, I’ve brought one 1950’s era model back to life, and all my other engines and cars are running smooth as silk.
And Jeff - I’ve got 2 geeps, so that works out about right.
Keep collecting them and after a little you’ll have a bunch of them like I do. Most of mine are Athearns.
Just wanted to follow up. I just got an email from Walthers saying they’ll ship me new replacement geared axles since there’s a known issue with them splitting. Obviously it’d be nice to have the engine run great right away, but I’ll mark this up as a chance for a good learning experience to get up close and personal with the inner workings of the engine!
STANDARD PROCEEDURE on any new item is to exchange it at the point of sale - such as where you bought it.
All dealers have replacement policies on new products they sell. Factory warrantees require shipping to factory - or nowadays - an importer.
If you fix yourself - and modify anything - you void the free part of the WARRANTY. Too many modelers break things, or mis-wire.
Shwango:
Cracked gears are somewhat rare on newer products. (1) gears cracking is when (aging) plastic shrinks around solid metal axles, and has nowhere to go. (2) Subsequent production changes address this problem. (3)Motors turn faster than wheels and have a different ‘sound’.
I’m not sure that changing axle gears will solve a ‘motor noise’ problem.
Don’t let a new warrantee void out.
Don,
Thanks for the info. Yeah, I’m debating about whether I should take it back to the LHS before screwing around with it, guess it’s the DIY in me! I hear ya about the warranty - not like the locos are cheap!
I’m not sure about the geared axles - I’m guess maybe there’s a defect that causes them to break down even when they normally shouldn’t - otherwise I’m not sure they’d send them out for free when I just got the engine.
I guess “motor noise” wasn’t the right term to use - I’m not 100% what’s causing the noise - I know this loco is a lot noisier than my Atlas and wanted to get the forum’s feedback.
To find out if a gear is cracked, I run the loco against a bumper on my test track and throttle up until the wheels spin. Apopping sound from either truck indicates a cracked gear. I too received new gears free of charge when Likelike had not been bought out by Walthers. I saved the old gears and glued them on to the split axles of some spare wheelsets for hard times. I’ve put a few of these into service and they held up OK. You can see the split in a cracked gear between the gear and the end that slips over the axle. Hope this helps. Tweet
Guys… thanks for all the replies so far. I got the new gears from Walthers, but there’s no instructions on how to do the replacement. I’m new to loco maintenance, so any help is appreciated! Also, I can’t seem to remove the weight from the base. There’s an orange wire that runs down the side of the motor and I think that’s holding things in place. I got Labelle 102, 107 and 108 from my LHS today - any pointers from this point?
Thanks!
to replace the gears yu have to remove the covers from the botom of the trucks. once the covers are off you can lift the wheelsets out. if you have just the gears in the shipment, you have to remove the wheels from the old gears an dpress them into the new ones. make sure the wheels are in gage and dont pinch the bearings (the square things). if yu can spin the bearing, its ok. once that done, drop the wheelsets backin abd put the covers on