A LOOK INSIDE MY LIONEL VL GG1

Thanks, Alex.

Was there anything particularly tricky putting it back together? 

Jim

Good job Alex.   Good to show folks what these things are like inside.  

Great insight there on the Lionel GG-1 Alex.

Well, you've voided the warranty on that sucker, you published the crime!

The newer locomotives like this one, the VL-BB, etc. do seem to have better layouts for ease of maintenance, it's a nice trend.

Alex - 

Thank you for posting... Being an engineer myself I can appreciate the work and packaging that went into this locomotive. 

A few questions:

1) is the shell diecast?

2) what is the second (resistor) in the smoke unit for?

3) no R4 boards any more? 

4) The smoke unit port is a piece of art... don't want to miss or overflow that unit!

5) why the dual sound units?

6) Do these have the 90 degree turn release truck assemblies?

I take all my engines apart too. Its just what I do!

THANKS ALEX !!! 

John, Alex did not void the warranty.  Lionel will not be unhappy with that.   What they will stand tight on is some people have no knowledge of what they are doing and screw things up.  Alex knows what he is doing and will never have any issue with Lionel.  We get to see engines that people screw up beyond belief.  When those come to me, I refuse to work on them.   Alex can work on my engines any day.

JDaddy, what you thought was a second resistor is actually a thermistor.  That reads heat and will shut the unit down if something goes wrong.  The body is die cast, no break away trucks, and the R4LC has not been used in high engines for a long time.  The R4LC board was used in early Legacy with the older style modular boards.  Than goodness they did away with the modular boards.  The RCMC board system is the best ever from Lionel.

The sound system is something special from Lionel.  Ryan Kunkle did a great job.

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

John, Alex did not void the warranty.  Lionel will not be unhappy with that.   What they will stand tight on is some people have no knowledge of what they are doing and screw things up.  Alex knows what he is doing and will never have any issue with Lionel.  We get to see engines that people screw up beyond belief.  When those come to me, I refuse to work on them.   Alex can work on my engines any day.

Marty, I obviously know that, I was just giving Alex a little poke.  

Alex, you are amazing...I admire you and Marty Fitzhenry for your electronic engineering abilities..Being able to take these truly complicated engines apart and figure out how they work is so neat. I admire you all for what you do for this hobby. Thank you. 

My VL GG1 has a front top right marker like out, I am afraid to take it apart, so, should I call Lionel. I just noticed this last week. 

Alex,

      A Pennsy engine? Whats going on here. It is a beauty.

JohnB

Maybe Alex can fix it for you.

Larry, I would send it back to Lionel.  The lamp failure would be under warranty so they will pay shipping both ways.   Give them a call and you wIll have an RA and shipping label by the end of the day.  Just keep in mind that with work load a summer vacation it might take 2 or 3 weeks before you see it again.

Very cool Alex! While I'll wait until my warranty is up before venturing in, I do keep tab of these threads for when I do have to pop the hood.

Thanks for another great look at the insides of a high end/Vision Line Lionel engine, much appreciated Alex.

I have to say that I still don't regret getting one of these given the issues identified when they first shipped but I admire the design and assembly effort that went into  these models. There's so much packed in there that I can't really fault the price point at which they actually sold but that's just my opinion.

I got out my JLC five stripe Tuscan version of the GG1 and it runs fine after a long time on the display shelf. (BTW, can't say the same for my MTH PS2 South Shore Little Joe that's developed the pantograph issues documented on other threads here. Anyone know who can service these?)

Yes, DANR, that's what I had been planning. It's an awesome engine and all other functions work fine. Thanks for nudging me to get this done. Happy Railroading.

When you put it back together make sure all these little plastic spacers are present. The shell is the engine antenna and without the spacers it will short to ground on the chassis and not work. It can be a headache figuring out why. Don't ask me how I know. 

Thanks for the video Alex.  Things must be approaching normal in the new house if you have time for your informative posts again.

Good morning everyone

Jim, The inside of this unit is quite complicated, there's a lot to watch out for. One thing is they have these small rectangle and square insulators that prevent shorts. If they're forgotten there will definitely be a problem. I don't recommend anyone opening this unit unless they have experience.

Marty my buddy, yes i agree. It's a great idea to show everyone what goes into these units. The technology is amazing.

Bob, thanks my friend

GRJ , LOL !

John, read Marty's post above he explained it perfectly. The only thing i might add,  from what i understand the dual sound system promotes a stereo sound, which is amazing.

Larry thank you for your very kind words, Marty and i go way back and we've done a lot together. Larry do not open up this engine, if the marker light is out contact Lionel and have them repair it for you. There's to much going on inside this unit, plus it will void your warranty.

John B, It was a must have for me, Lionel hit a home run with this unit.

Marty E,  Yes good idea don't open it up until the warranty is over, then you can go for a look inside. Just be careful there's a lot going on inside.

Thanks to ALL,

Alex

Alex M posted:

Good morning everyone

Marty E,  Yes good idea don't open it up until the warranty is over, then you can go for a look inside. Just be careful there's a lot going on inside.

Thanks to ALL,

Alex

Hah!  I just realized I haven't registered mine yet.  Ruh Roh!

Hi LARRY,

  Yes send it back to Lionel.  I had purchased a SD38 Reading and Northern and the marker kight was out.  Lionel picked up the charges for shipping both ways.  Had it back in a week.  Thanks Lionel.

Hancock52 posted:

I got out my JLC five stripe Tuscan version of the GG1 and it runs fine after a long time on the display shelf. (BTW, can't say the same for my MTH PS2 South Shore Little Joe that's developed the pantograph issues documented on other threads here. Anyone know who can service these?)

The top suspect with the MTH pantograph issues is the drive belt.  I found that the Harbor Freight #91506 O-ring assortment belt #116 fits perfectly for a replacement.  The size is 3/32" thick, an ID of 3/4", and an OD of 15/16".  Marty Fitzhenry turned me onto the idea of using the O-ring replacement.

Dave good thing to point out.  Anytime I get one of these engines with a complaint that the customer can not communicate with the engine  the problem is usually as you stated.

John. with my MTH GG-1 fleet I had to be up on those belts.   I have to have both pans always in operation.

I'll have to watch this when I get home tonight. I hate taking things apart because like my uncle, I have extra pieces, but unlike him, whatever was taken apart wouldn't operate afterwards, lol.

It would be great if the real life tech's watched Alex's video and could figure out from that what is wrong with the real GG1's onboard transformer.

Anyone who has extra parts should not work on trains.   I grew up in the family garage business and then went on to work on aircraft.  If you had an extra part, your career would end that day.

A real life tech does not need a video.  We have training and service bulletins on the Lionel tech site to work with.   Whenever a tech has a question that needs more investigation we have a great resource  known as Dean Brasseur.  Dean is the senior Customer Service Rep.    Alex did a great job on his post as it raised questions that many people wondered about.  I have many people ask me how much different the Vision line G motor is from the JLC.    It is very different.  The JLC  G was old school modular boards and the Vision G has the RCMC board system.   A  much better system.

Marty, I did some work on this one a few times, and the only extra parts were when I was replacing things.

John, as soon as I graduated from "A" school at the Naval Air Technical Training Command, here is the first aircraft I worked on.  This was one of our base AC.  Many  to follow.  Then on to Sea King helicopters on the Aircraft Carrier Randolph.

Alex,

You are indeed one brave soul!

Thanks for the tour .

Richard

I only worked on my own Marty, besides the stuff on those is too heavy.   I ran Special Services on the USS Shangri La, CVA-38 for my military service, real work was too taxing.

Alex, any chance you could do the sequence of still pictures like you did for the Vision Line Big Boy?  I dig those out when I'm looking at things on that one, they were a great help.

I've always been disappointed when someone would bring me something and screws were lost, pieces, TRUCKS, etc.

Id rather not be the fixit guy, but some jobs are interesting. 

Richard,  Alex knows his work.  I get to see many that were opened up by folks who do not.  Chuck,  whenever someone opens and works on a new engine (under warranty) they are rolling the dice.   If you are not a Lionel tech, you may not get certain parts when an engine is new.    Many guys can fix anything.  The parts are the key.    

John you had a good gig.

Marty,

Yep, Alex has opened up a few of my engines. I would pay admission to just have the opportunity to sit next to him when he goes to works on these engines. Maybe I would at least become confident enough to remove a body shell from my modern Lionel and MTH engines.

Richard 

ALEX

THANKS FOR SHARING

STEVE

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

Anyone who has extra parts should not work on trains.   I grew up in the family garage business and then went on to work on aircraft.  If you had an extra part, your career would end that day.

A real life tech does not need a video.  We have training and service bulletins on the Lionel tech site to work with.   Whenever a tech has a question that needs more investigation we have a great resource  known as Dean Brasseur.  Dean is the senior Customer Service Rep.    Alex did a great job on his post as it raised questions that many people wondered about.  I have many people ask me how much different the Vision line G motor is from the JLC.    It is very different.  The JLC  G was old school modular boards and the Vision G has the RCMC board system.   A  much better system.

Marty, I leave train work to the professionals. I am terrible about working on things like trains and it is just a better idea if it needs work, to talk to someone who knows what they're doing. My uncle who I was talking about, he could take things apart, put them back together and would work better than it was(cars mainly I mean). He used to work on I think it was Ford or one of the other manufacturers that had something here in New Jersey ages ago. He used to tell me how he had taken apart an engine from a car when he worked at the garage(again, ages ago) and had left over parts. Owner of the garage asked him one time I think if the car ran, it did with no problems. Of course this was as they say, back in the day when automobiles were still relatively young and didn't have all sorts of stuff in them now. My uncle was a good man, how I miss his charm.

Nice Video thanks.

Last time I opened up a VL engine the ES -44ac Evil-lution I badly re-connected a board and a BIG PUFF later; it went back to Lionel. 

Interesting to look at the inside of a Vision Line Engine. I don't really work on many thing in my current job, most of the time I am doing training of how to use the software the company were I work for to update Elevator Displays. Though I did assemble elevator parts. I do work on electronics props sometime that involve soldering and running wires carefully. Luckily I haven't really needed to have my engines repaired very often as of yet. A couple of engines have needed to be repaired.

John here's still pictures 

Great presentation and insight!

Very nice Alex, thanks for the photos.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Hancock52 posted:

I got out my JLC five stripe Tuscan version of the GG1 and it runs fine after a long time on the display shelf. (BTW, can't say the same for my MTH PS2 South Shore Little Joe that's developed the pantograph issues documented on other threads here. Anyone know who can service these?)

The top suspect with the MTH pantograph issues is the drive belt.  I found that the Harbor Freight #91506 O-ring assortment belt #116 fits perfectly for a replacement.  The size is 3/32" thick, an ID of 3/4", and an OD of 15/16".  Marty Fitzhenry turned me onto the idea of using the O-ring replacement.

GRJ, I did consult the thread(s) about exactly that part. In my case, (a) only one of the pantograph motors is running and (b) it does not move the pantograph. Fixing where the lever the motor moves engages with the pantograph is easy; figuring out why the other motor does not run at all is beyond me. 

I mention this partly because I have never had any issues with my JLC GG-1 pantographs. (I say nothing about that VL precursor, the Acela!!!)