384e Troubles

Do you have any trouble just pushing the locomotive around the track? If you feel excessive resistance there might be an issue with the locomotive. It should navigate 42" curves easily.

If not, the track might just be dirty, I switched over to brand new MTH Standard Gage realtrax and have had no problems, there are repros of original style tubular track as well.

Brian Liesberg posted:

Do you have any trouble just pushing the locomotive around the track? If you feel excessive resistance there might be an issue with the locomotive. It should navigate 42" curves easily.

If not, the track might just be dirty, I switched over to brand new MTH Standard Gage realtrax and have had no problems, there are repros of original style tubular track as well.

well it goes around well when I push it and all it really needs is a push when it is powered, I'm Thinking about getting new track now that you mention it, I went over the old stuff with emry cloth and it just cleaned it. Maybe if I lubricated the locomotive?

Whoever did the repair could have not done a good job as well, try cleaning up a few pieces of track really well (pins and inside the rails where the pins connect) and see if it runs, if not it could be a bad rebuild.

Brian Liesberg posted:

Whoever did the repair could have not done a good job as well, try cleaning up a few pieces of track really well (pins and inside the rails where the pins connect) and see if it runs, if not it could be a bad rebuild.

so I went back and tackled the beast again... The engine runs pretty well without the shell on so I know that it runs around the curves. Do you maybe think that the weight of the engine and three passenger cars is why it's performing poorly? I ran the engine with the shell on but no drive rods that go into the cylinders, only the main rods that go along the two wheels to keep them in place. I may tackle the beast again tomorrow but without the headlight connected, I think that may be the problem. But then again this is my first pre war piece of motive power, what do I know. 

May I respectfully ask what is the nature of your company?

Tinplate Art posted:

May I respectfully ask what is the nature of your company?

The Rascona Company?  It is the head of many railroad subdivisions. (It's not real of course). The Tinplate division is Known as The Indian Valley. Most of the railroads I operate utilize the Canadian National style of logo.

I think the 384e should easily pull 3 passenger cars. While it's apart check the commutator & brushes to see if they're dirty, pitted, etc...

Brian Liesberg posted:

I think the 384e should easily pull 3 passenger cars. While it's apart check the commutator & brushes to see if they're dirty, pitted, etc...

Okay... now I think it's time to get a diagram of a 384e to make sure I'm not doing something I'm going to regret later on. What is the commuator? and what are the brushes? 

The brushes are the small (typically cylindrical on trains) sliding contacts that give power to the rotor, which picks up the power via the commutator (copper plates).

This is the best picture I could take without taking an engine apart. The brushes are housed inside the tubes that I have labeled "brushes", just to avoid any confusion. You want the rotor and brushes clean and free of pits and debris between the plates.

Alrighty, how should I clean them if they're dirty? emry cloth? maybe some goo gone or something? Do you think that the engine should be lubricated as well? 

I always lubricate a new engine.

As for cleaning them, I may get some flak for this (I don't know how everyone else cleans theirs), I use fine steel wool and alcohol for just a light cleaning.  I also use a toothpick to clean out the grooves in the commutator, if there are metal bits in there it can short between 2 plates and cause the motor to not work as well as it should, or at all. Scotch brite might work well, or if it's just dirty some q-tips and alcohol.

To seat the brushes, I stick fine grit sandpaper under them while the motor is to-gether and sand them flat.

The one pictured above was pitted so bad that I attached the rotor to a Dremel tool and spun it against sandpaper until it was flat, that worked very well and the engine runs smooth as butter (again it was extremely pitted).

This might be useful:

http://avstop.com/ac/Aviation_..._General/10-141.html

I run standard guage all the time but you must oil them I put a drop on the armature  and axels about every other time I run them if there is no oil they will not run smooth and will run slow and have a hard time pulling

kevin

Okie Doke so the engine went around the loop just find after lubrication and swapping out certain sections of track that were tighter at certain points where the engine was struggling. I put the shell on and it pulled two of the three cars just fine. I put the final car and rest of the drive gear on and it'll start to fry itself on the curves. I think it's the track, not the engine, so I think some reproduction MTH track will do just fine. 

Just a silly question - What transformer are you using? can you measure how much the motor is drawing in amps?

J Daddy posted:

Just a silly question - What transformer are you using? can you measure how much the motor is drawing in amps?

 

A Lionel CW-80 transformer is what I'm using

Did you lubricate the cars?

Brian Liesberg posted:

Did you lubricate the cars?

I lubricated the engine and tender, when I turned the locomotive around so it would run the other way it ran like a breeze. Yeah I needed to push it around one of the curves when it first started but it runs great now! Thanks to everyone that chipped in with advice about the loco... now now what to buy for the layout?