Fixing Visionline Big Boy (All Fixed Now!)

You will have to remove the whole shell to make the repair.Can you post a couple of close up pictures?Nick

SINCLAIR  removing the shell offers very little to re-attaching the wires.

take a light or flashlight and look at the ends of wires you will notice what looks like black heat shrink tubing inside that area is a very small straight metal connector.

slide the handrails back towards cab they have some movement then tape them so cannot move, now hold the handrail so as when you use a long pair of locking tweezers this will aid in allowing you to slide that connector back onto the ends of both handrails and the handrails cannot slide forward while you re-attach the wire connectors to them.

once you have them firmly attached remember this never allow handrails to move in forward direction when handling the big boy as that's how they become unattached!

a foam engine cradle will help as well to protect the add on details.

ask me how I know this. 

a side bar when you can find time post some pictures of new layout your creating last one I saw was a flat top layout with 3 mainlines I think.

hope the above helps you get the big boy going again!

I found Alex's thread where he showed the "guts" of this thing.  Glad I didn't try taking the boiler off.  Why didn't Lionel make the cab roof removable?  Thanks to Alex's photos, I see only the engineer's side antenna wire came off, The other thing I thought was the wire was just a separately applied detail.  Only having one handrail attached seems is enough to keep it from seeing the TMCC signal, at least I hope that's why.  This thing has always been picky about the signal, none of my other locomotives have.  I don't have any locking tweezers, guess I'll have to go buy some.  And it looks like the handrail moving is the reason it came apart, that rail has a ton of movement, coming out of the cab if I don't hold it just so.  I might just glue it in place if I can ever get it reconnected to the wire.  But then I can't get into the cab to glue it as the roof doesn't come off.  At least the engineer figure came out easy, but the throttle handle is still in the way and doesn't seem to want to come out with a light tug.

You could try contacting Mike Reagan over at Trainworx.  He can offer more advice, or you could even send it to him for the repair.

mreagan@twtrainworx.com

There is something up.  I pulled the handrail completely out of the stanchions and fed the antenna cable through the roof vent hatch and plugged it in.  After making sure it wasn't touching the locomotive I powered up the track again, and it still started in conventional.  I'm going to try a couple more things to double check, but it seems it doesn't see the command signal at all.  I hate having to send this out as I already sent it to Lionel once to fix the tender, and the box came back in really bad shape to the point I don't think it could handle being shipped again.

I appreciate this thread a bunch!!  Makes me now very careful handling the loco and to not touch the handrails.

repair technician posted:

hi so what is the correct way to pick up the vision line big boy and not damage anything or wires or antenna pulling loose!

Sincerely thanks for any answer

Alan

the best way is to put one hand under front set of drive wheel assembly the other can use the cab side area or at least that's how I do it.

the important part is try to steer clear of handrails as they can and do slide forward at times and then in time the antenna wires become disconnected and are a real pain to reconnect.

SINCLAIR  see if holding hand over handrails has any affect on only working in conventional. also not to be a wise guy are you sure one wire connection from command base is wired to tracks or anything else that could be in play.

or if your not afraid to venture under the hood remove the boiler shell caution 2 sets of plugins at very front of boiler not much excess wire so remove them first then gently lay boiler on its side and look towards rear of frame where the blowdown smoke unit is you will see a main pcb board with a small pcb coming off from the rear side make sure your not holding an electrical charge in hands and then gently apply pressure to that small board to insure its pins are seated if that doesn't help then call lionel for a RA # as the small board that controls the antenna most likely is faulty. the rcmc board might have issue but I'm more inclined to think the antenna pcb board has issues. 

careful when setting boiler shell back onto frame assembly the antenna wires have a bad habit of dropping under the shell and can get pinched or even cut if not detected and you screw the boiler to frame. and a long needle nose will work well putting those 2 connectors back into sockets at front of boiler/frame area also the front smoke stacks need aligned if body has gap near them where the shell and frame meet its not right if you see a gap between frame and boiler front to back.

not meaning to scare you just letting you know  all that needs tended to reassembling it.

It's going to go back to Lionel, I already sent them an email.  The smoke units are at full power, but the fans are not running, and power cycling the track doesn't cause it to cycle the reverse unit, so it doesn't even move.  When I pulled the sand dome cover off to turn the smoke units off, I noticed that the area was very hot and I could smell electrical hot.  So I killed power before I cooked anything more than it was.  It's just a paper weight now unit I hear back from Lionel.  I'm not happy as my grandfather is coming to town for New Years, and I was hoping to show it to him as he saw the real things when they went through Laramie where he lives.

Alan, why are you asking this question on the forum  I was present with you at York when you purchased the engine and I spent a few minutes going over care and handling of this engine with you.    York was not that long ago that you forgot.  Simple solution, ask your questions on the forum.

Marty Fitzhenry posted:

Alan, why are you asking this question on the forum  I was present with you at York when you purchased the engine and I spent a few minutes going over care and handling of this engine with you.    York was not that long ago that you forgot.  Simple solution, ask your questions on the forum.

Hi Marty, Merry Christmas.  I have a Vision Line Big Boy that I bought in Jan 2015 that has not been run since April 2015, stored in its original box.  You mentioned in the above that you have some care and handling tips on this engine.  I would be interested in them if you have the time.

Update:  I got in touch with Lionel, and the short of the story is I sent them the RCMC, and they sent me a replacement.  Thanks to the guys at Lionel for that, and a quick turn around.

I got the replacement RCMC installed last night and repaired the handrail connection (Soldered it so that it wouldn't come apart again, as well as glued the handrails so that they wouldn't shift anymore.) and got it on the track and powered up.  It obeyed all command again! I was so happy, until I got it moving.  At speed step 23 it jerks hard and slows down, and acts like that (Like the brakes are applied.) until near speed step 40, then it picks back up and speeds along just fine.  While in the range of speed step 23-40 it acts a lot like the Moguls, lurches/surges a lot.  I've shot another email to Lionel.  Hopefully they have something I can do as resetting and reprogramming the locomotive didn't change anything.

Have you tried lubing the gears with red and tacky; lubing the connecting rods; cleaning the rollers and ground wheels; making sure the command base and transformer connections are good; clean track?

are you sure antenna board pins are all solidly connected as well as the plug in connectors? sounds like a possible cruise issue or the part that reads the motors movement in time to drive wheels is another possibility.

hope you can get it resolved without having to send anything back to lionel for repair.

It is a cruise issue as it doesn't do it when I turn the cruise off.  But it only does it in that speed range, so I wonder if it's an error in the the programming, a bad line of code.

I doubt it's the programming, sounds more like an issue with the flywheel sensor.

Well, my locomotive is all fixed.  Lionel sent me a cap to add across the sensor leads on the motor.  So I am a happy camper now.  I want to thank Dean at Lionel and the other service techs there for working with me and getting me what I needed to repair my locomotive.

Thanks for posting the good news - its important that we all hear when things go right.

MIKE