2344 Pullmor Motor problem

Look carefully at your axle bushings. Worn axle bushings allow the wheel to scrub against the block. Making a very effective brake. The tell tale will be on the back side of the wheels. The wheels will be shiny from scrubbing, ……more so than the others. Axle bushing replacement isn’t a horrible job to do.

* there’s a few other things to look at, such as loose filed stack on the motor, etc, etc, but I’ll let the postwar experts chime in on that…..Chuck, David, Bmoran4 should see this ….

Pat

The worm shaft bearings wear as well, allowing the worm shaft gear to shift into contact with the truck block casting. Obviously, like with axle bushings, the wear occurs much more in forward.

Like Pat mentioned, another thing to check for is loose field studs. Hold the rear part of the casting and try to wiggle the field lamanations. Should not move at all.

Would a shim cut from a bread tie work, between the rubbing wheel and truck block?

Chris

Thanks fellas,

I'll have a look for wearing later on today. Sorry, but can you define 'field studs' (are those the terminals for the drive shaft?) and 'lamanations'? What's a I used a toothpick as a shim to keep the drive shaft and the 'terminals' (are these field studs?) from having any wiggle to and fro. I noticed that there is some play there, so perhaps that's the issue. I've cleaned and oiled the bearing in that whatever-it's-called, and I made sure the bearing doesn't protrude from the block.

I'll check on things later on today. Oh, and what's a 'filed stack' on the motor? I have a feeling I"m going to know a lot better the parts of this thing on the other side.

Thanks for your help!

Curt

The motor field is grounded through the spring washer under the motor. I usually solder a new ground wire from the field terminal to the chassis for both motors.

@caa posted:

Would a shim cut from a bread tie work, between the rubbing wheel and truck block?

Chris

Not really, it’s a band aid at best, and won’t be as effective as a proper repair,…….using a bread bag clip still has a large footprint of friction……the idea of a proper axle bushing is a reduced surface area of drag, ……..

Pat

HI Folks, Thanks for your suggestions! I've got the rear truck off. There are no visible signs of rubbing on the back of the wheels. BUT, with the truck off I notice that the rear left wheel seems to do something interesting. If I hold it sideways/vertically with the right wheels on top, the wheels spin fine. When I reverse that (left wheels on top) it binds enough to do as Pat says, it's a pretty effective 'brake.' So that might be my problem.

I guess the next question: how does one do an axle bushing fix? Is that something I could do, or should I take it in to someone?

BTW, my little toothpick shim in the drive shaft field studs (is that the brass block at both ends of the drive shaft with the ball bearing?) has eliminated any movement of the drive shaft. So I guess that's a good thing.?

Cheers

Curt

Hi you would have to press the wheel off and be careful not to damage the wheel or bearing, then you can inspect the bushing and gears for wear or damage, then purchase the parts and reinstall the parts and make sure you lubricate worm gears and lightly oil axle bushings only one drop of turbine oil is what I use!

also more techs would help you if you would enter your email in your profile!

Alan

Curt, pictures would help.

Thanks Alan et alia, email added to my profile.

Here are some pictures of the truck in question. You'll be able to see that the trucks do rub on the bottom photo when the trucks are held at 90 degrees. I can sort of imagine 'torque steer' like you can get in a car making one direction problematic while the other wasn't (or was less so). I don't really see any irregularity with the motor itself when running without being attached.

Do you guys think that's enough conclusive evidence? Unfortunately (well, not so unfortunately, but perhaps so in this case) I live in Australia, so parts and repair aren't as easy to come by. It'll probably have to wait until I'm home in June. I'm not that comfortable pulling wheels myself, and I definitely don't have the tools or experience. I've got a 681 that needs to have wheels pulled as well--I've got the parts for that unfinished project.

So I guess my questions for the moment are: Do you think we've found the issue with this F3? Could you recommend someone in the D/FW area that might fix it? Or any other thoughts?

Cheers

Curt

sorry--I said 'trucks do rub', meant to say wheels.

Curt, beings you’re on the other side of the planet, I’d imagine waiting for parts to arrive can encompass many moons passing, …….there is one less invasive fix you can do. I have fixed these trucks before by only removing the offended wheels, and placing a shim OVER the axle, and against the old bushing. To be sure somewhere in Australia you can get your hands on small stainless shims …..perhaps there’s a material handler like McMaster Carr, or Kimball Midwest somewhere In Australia…….the idea of that repair would be a shim that fits over the big part of the axle, and rests up against the old axle bushing….don’t shim the wheel away from the axle ……when you pull the wheel off the axle, it’ll be self explanatory,……….in addition, it’s a lot less work then having to pull gears and bushings

Pat

Curt, you did not say how you use your locomotive. Do you run it as an A-A pair with the motor unit in the front and the dummy following?  The repair you need is fairly complicated. As Pat said, you could just pull the wheels that rub and have a thin bronze washer made and use that to move the wheel away from the truck frame. But another possible solution is to run the motor unit backwards. If you run your loco as a A-A set, put the dummy in front and the motor unit behind it running backwards. This would give you years of trouble free operation.

HI folks

Thanks for your suggestions. I could certainly run them in reverse since it's a pair of F3s. I guess it would just bother me knowing that there was a problem lurking beneath the surface. I come home twice a year, so I can wait until I get there in June to get these properly fixed. If you've got a suggestion of someone I could send it to, that'd be great. I'm in D/FW, but wouldn't necessarily be an issue. I"ll be home for 5 weeks.

The other thing that occurred to me was this. For some strange reason I bought a SF B unit that came with one truck that had been a power truck but was being used as a non-powered truck. So, in the meantime I thought I might swap that over and pick up a non-powered truck later on. Question for you: would a 2353 (SF) truck and a 2344 (NYC) truck be the same part, except for the obvious silver v black truck frames? If they're the same, I might be able to swap them out. If they're not, or if I"m creating a Frankenstein, I'd just as soon wait.

Anyway, you guys have helped me identify a frustrating problem and have offered some great solutions.

Thank you!

Curt

The 2344 and 2353 trucks will interchange.

Eureka! Changing the trucks worked! I’m up and running. Thanks for the help! I wouldn’t have thought about the axle bushings if you guys hadn’t mentioned it, and I’d still be frustrated trying to fix it.

Thanks fellas!

Curt

Well, almost. One last (I hope) issue I could use some help with. The F3 still runs better in reverse than in forward, but this time I don't think it's an issue with the trucks. It might be something with the gears, but I sort of doubt it.

I think you'll hear from the video below a sort of 'crackling' sound in forward that isn't present in reverse. I don't notice a loss of power per se, but in slow speeds you can definitely hear something. I'm wondering if this might have to do with the grounding suggestion RoyBoy mentioned above? Anyway, if you guys have a thought about that I'd appreciate your help. I think this is (hopefully) the last issue before the unit is in full service.

Cheers,

Curt