Help! My Lionel J3a 5433 is having speed and direction issues.

The engine has Odyssey which uses a magnet ring for sensing speed. It may be a broken magnet or simply the radio board needs to be reseated. Given the symptoms I would suspect the radio board first. The shell comes off fairly easily. Worth taking a look.

Pete

Thanks for the suggestion. Is there any way of telling that the R2LC (radio) board is bad without replacing it first?

First just reseat it, it may be loose or the contacts are dirty. Also make sure the antenna wires from the handrails have a good connection and the handrails are going into plastic bushings in the pilot deck. Sometimes the bushings are lost and the antenna gets shorted out.

If all that checks out then you have to swap out the radio board. If you have another TMCC engine use that one first before spending money on a replacement.

What does the headlight do when you first apply power? If it blinks continuously then its a signal issue.

Pete

When you do take the shell off a cracked magnet will be easy to spot on the flywheel.  Not sure if you still can get those if that is your issue. If not it can be converted to ERR cruise M easy. 

Thank you for the quick replies. I have an R2LC board from ERR's tmcc upgrade kit. Will that work?

The ERR board will work even though the newer ones are actually a special form of R4LC.

Pete

I do not recall the headlight ever blinking. I bought this set new a few days ago and it had never been run before other than the seller saying that they bench tested it.

Magnet rings and replacement flywheels are readily available, I keep a couple in my spare parts.  You will have to pull the old flywheel if the magnet ring is broken as you can't put the ring on from the top.  The "fix-it" flywheel has setscrews to allow you to easily glue the ring to the flywheel and then install the flywheel on the motor.  Make sure the spots on the magnet ring side face away from the sensor board.

Thank you all very much for your ideas and help. I ended up taking the train to a person nearby who did repairs on Lionel trains. He found that some insulating screws weren't long enough causing the engine to go at full speed. I would have never found this myself, so props to him. Now I can control the engine's speed!

The only thing that I am dissatisfied at the moment about is the Rail Sounds 4. So I did some research on upgraded Lionel Rail Sounds boards for NYC Hudsons and I came across 2 options:

1. The Lionmaster Hudsons #5418, item # (6-38045), and #5422, item # (6-38085). They both have Rail Sounds 4e boards with road number specific dialog.

2. The Century Club 2 separate sale PT tender item # (6-38097) made to go along with the Empire State Express Hudson #5429, item # (6-38000). It has a Rail Sounds 5 board with road number specific dialog.

I actually quite like the separate sale PT tender and am wondering, even though it has Rail Sounds 5 boards, could I put the Lionmaster Rail Sounds 4e board from 5422 in it. Then I would renumber the J3a loco and pt tender to 5422. If I did this, I would most likely get another boiler shell for 5433 so that if I want, I can turn the engine back into 5433.

To have proof that this is a realistic combination. Here is a photo from canadasouthern.com of 5422 as built with cylindrical Elesco feed water heater and straight running board. The locomotive is also pulling a PT tender behind it.

So does anyone know if putting the 5422 4e board in the 5.0 PT tender will work?

If it does work, does anyone know where I can find a Lionmaster 5422 Rail Sounds 4e board from? They do not sell the part at Lionel Support. The part # is (691RS4E031).

Why not just buy the pt tender and renumber the loco?

No need to swap sound boards or anything. Just hook the pt tender drawbar to the loco and away you go.

I believe all of the  prototype ese hudsons were originally "unstreamlined".  Streamlining was added , then removed again later in their operating carreer for ease of maintenance .

Hudson experts please advise.

RS4 sounds are pretty basic. Usually the sound that most like or dislike is the whistle. Have you heard the whistles on the generic steam Railsounds boards? Lionel has a couple available as well as all of the ERR Railsounds. Being generic there is no reference to roadname or cab number. That would save you the task of renumbering your engine.

Pete

RickO posted:

Why not just buy the pt tender and renumber the loco?

No need to swap sound boards or anything. Just hook the pt tender drawbar to the loco and away you go.

I believe all of the  prototype ese hudsons were originally "unstreamlined".  Streamlining was added , then removed again later in their operating carreer for ease of maintenance .

Hudson experts please advise.

RICKO,

That would work, (just putting the pt tender behind 5433 and renumbering it 5429), but 5429 was never de-streamlined with a PT tender and is therefor un-prototypical. I know that seems a little crazy but I want to be as prototypical as possible. I am way too crazy for my own good about the NYC Hudson.

-Cole

Norton posted:

RS4 sounds are pretty basic. Usually the sound that most like or dislike is the whistle. Have you heard the whistles on the generic steam Railsounds boards? Lionel has a couple available as well as all of the ERR Railsounds. Being generic there is no reference to roadname or cab number. That would save you the task of renumbering your engine.

Pete

Pete,

Does ERR or 3rd rail have a generic RS5 board? If I could I would like to upgrade completely to RS5. The only reason I don't want to use the PT tender sound board is because it's road number specific. If there is a generic RS5 board, could you point me in the right direction?

-PS.          I would still need to at least re-letter the locomotive because the loco's 1930s as-built roman lettering would not match the tender's 1940s gothic lettering.

-Cole

J Class Hudson Fan posted:

Norton posted:

RS4 sounds are pretty basic. Usually the sound that most like or dislike is the whistle. Have you heard the whistles on the generic steam Railsounds boards? Lionel has a couple available as well as all of the ERR Railsounds. Being generic there is no reference to roadname or cab number. That would save you the task of renumbering your engine.

Pete

Pete,

Does ERR or 3rd rail have a generic RS5 board? If I could I would like to upgrade completely to RS5. The only reason I don't want to use the PT tender sound board is because it's road number specific. If there is a generic RS5 board, could you point me in the right direction?

-PS.          I would still need to at least re-letter the locomotive because the loco's 1930s as-built roman lettering would not match the tender's 1940s gothic lettering.

-Cole

Keep in mind, 5429 will appear on the rear of the PT tender too....along with the tiny inscription “cenruty club II” .........Pat

All ERR boards have no mention of road name or cab number. The current ones have both intelligible crew talk and tower com. They are not however direct plug in replacements for your current audio board. You will have to run a wire from the current audio motherboard's serial data to the ERR RS board along with power in and speaker out. You should be able to go to the ERR web site and hear clips from the various boards. 

Pete

After doing some searching around on Lionel Support, I found that they had some Rail Sounds 4e generic steam boards (Berkshire/mikado) in stock. Does anyone know how good those are and will it just plug into the 5.0 PT tender?

(691RS4E046) RAILSOUNDS 4E / GENERIC STEAM (BERK/MIKADO)

The bottom of the image says 4.0 but it's actually 4e.

-Cole

Yep, plug it in and away you go.  However, I have no idea what those boards sound like.

J Class Hudson Fan posted:

The only thing that I am dissatisfied at the moment about is the Rail Sounds 4. So I did some research on upgraded Lionel Rail Sounds boards for NYC Hudsons and I came across 2 options:

1. The Lionmaster Hudsons #5418, item # (6-38045), and #5422, item # (6-38085). They both have Rail Sounds 4e boards with road number specific dialog.

2. The Century Club 2 separate sale PT tender item # (6-38097) made to go along with the Empire State Express Hudson #5429, item # (6-38000). It has a Rail Sounds 5 board with road number specific dialog.

 I actually quite like the separate sale PT tender and am wondering, even though it has Rail Sounds 5 boards, could I put the Lionmaster Rail Sounds 4e board from 5422 in it. Then I would renumber the J3a loco and pt tender to 5422. If I did this, I would most likely get another boiler shell for 5433 so that if I want, I can turn the engine back into 5433.

So does anyone know if putting the 5422 4e board in the 5.0 PT tender will work?

If it does work, does anyone know where I can find a Lionmaster 5422 Rail Sounds 4e board from? They do not sell the part at Lionel Support. The part # is (691RS4E031).

What don't you like about the RS4? Upgrading to a RS4e board doesn't change the functionality at all. The main purpose for the "e" -- enhanced -- was to eliminate some of the background hissing that was an artifact of the sound compression. This is mostly visible at rest, and once a locomotive is in motion, you can't really hear any difference over the usual layout sounds.

If you can find a RS5 board and chipset (but not Legacy 5.5 or 6) that you like, this could be added to your RS4 loco. There's one small quirk in doing that, as the transistor that powers the tender back-up light on the RS5 board will be destroyed, but the function will still work because of the AD20 in the tender. This really only becomes a problem if you want to put the RS5 board back into an RS5 loco (and is repairable if you needed it to be).

Lastly, you cannot add a RS4e board to a RS5 tender, as you won't have anything to control the back-up light and rear coupler. This is because an RS4 system uses an AD20 board for those functions. The AD20 was eliminated with RS5, and that functionality was added to the RS5 board. Without either an RS5 audio or an AD20 board in the tender, you lose those functions.

J Class Hudson Fan posted:

After doing some searching around on Lionel Support, I found that they had some Rail Sounds 4e generic steam boards (Berkshire/mikado) in stock. Does anyone know how good those are and will it just plug into the 5.0 PT tender?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yep, plug it in and away you go.  However, I have no idea what those boards sound like.

No, for the reasons mentioned above.

TRW

PaperTRW posted:

If you can find a RS5 board and chipset (but not Legacy 5.5 or 6) that you like, this could be added to your RS4 loco. There's one small quirk in doing that, as the transistor that powers the tender back-up light on the RS5 board will be destroyed, but the function will still work because of the AD20 in the tender. This really only becomes a problem if you want to put the RS5 board back into an RS5 loco (and is repairable if you needed it to be).

There's nothing connected to pin 7 of the 691-PCB1-038 motherboard to cook the lamp driver, so why would it be damaged?  FWIW, I plug RS5 boards into my little test rig with a similar motherboard all the time, and the backup lamp and rear coupler function work when they're placed back into the proper tender.

Cole, have you already acquired the PT tender for 5429? ....if so, the sound package in that tender is really descent....leave it be and re-number your cab to 5429. Photos do exist of 5429 in service un-shrouded before she got her dress,and it kept in service even after being bumped from the ESE.......in some photos, you can see where they even started taking off some of her clothes....who’s to say she met the scrapper’s torch with all her streamlining? .....if I were in your shoes, I’d have an unshrouded 5429 J3A ....that’d be a neat piece....I have a lot of Hudsons...but I don’t have one like that....hurry up before I beat ya to it!............Pete (Norton) and I conversed one evening for hours on what to do with one of my J1’s ....and this is the model we finally came up with....is it 100% accurate? Probably not, but it’s dang close and I love it....along with the other 30 odd Hudsons ............Pat

harmonyards posted:

Cole, have you already acquired the PT tender for 5429? ....if so, the sound package in that tender is really descent....leave it be and re-number your cab to 5429. Photos do exist of 5429 in service un-shrouded before she got her dress,and it kept in service even after being bumped from the ESE.......in some photos, you can see where they even started taking off some of her clothes....who’s to say she met the scrapper’s torch with all her streamlining? .....if I were in your shoes, I’d have an unshrouded 5429 J3A ....that’d be a neat piece....I have a lot of Hudsons...but I don’t have one like that....hurry up before I beat ya to it!............Pete (Norton) and I conversed one evening for hours on what to do with one of my J1’s ....and this is the model we finally came up with....is it 100% accurate? Probably not, but it’s dang close and I love it....along with the other 30 odd Hudsons ............Pat

Pat,

After thinking it over, I guess I will renumber the locomotive 5429. The RS4 on 5433 just doesn't satisfy me and I really like this Hudson being it is one of the 3 out of 9 J3a Hudsons that Lionel has and will produce without marker lights, the other two being custom runs by pat's trains and mr. muffin which I sadly missed out on.

Here is a photo of 5429 after its streamlining was removed.

No PT tender, but as I know there will never be perfection.

 

Pat, is 5221 an MTH Hudson, or a Lionel? It looks absolutely stunning.

The Century Club 773 has a Pulmore motor, so to do cruise you'd have to do a DC motor conversion first.

AFAIK only the only J1 to get a PT tender was 5221 which Pat has duplicated. If you want a Hudson with a PT tender you pretty much have to stick to J3s which Lionel, 3rd Rail and Williams have done. All of the MTH unstreamlined Hudsons are J1s.

Pete

Cole, let me see here if I can answer some of your questions....John already answered one of them, so let’s recap his correct answer. The older Lionel Hudsons up to 5344 with the Vandy tender are all pullmor power....to make them any kind of performer, a good sized can motor swap is a must. All the CV Hudsons as well are Pullmor powered. Pete (Norton) has a great thread on his CV Pittman swap. The Hudson pictured above is a MTH piece. A J1E model that actually came to me as a 2 rail spoked driver model with 12 wheel tender. I acquired the PT from a Dreyfus, and repainted and re-lettered it. The paint on the locomotive itself is all original save for the smoke box, which I added that coloring. The cab number simply wiped off with a rag dampened with lacquer thinner. The black paint did not get affected by the lacquer thinner. I’m careful not to saturate the area. The white cab numbers don’t like the thinner and are literally wiped away fairly quickly. Done correctly, the black on the cab should be spotless clean, ready for new cab numbers. As far as new numbers go, I have a buddy who makes me super thin vinyl numbers that truly look like pad printed numbers when applied. Same for the tender lettering. I think that J3A you have, coupled to a PT, and numbered to 5429 would be a stunning piece, easy to do and a real head turner. You can shoot me an Email and I’ll put you in touch with my buddy Graham to help you with cab numbering. I’m sure he’d be glad to help.....he’s a railroader at heart....as far as doing a whole bunch of swapping around with the older Lionel Hudsons, 785, 783, and so on, with as many can motored Hudsons on the market today, it really isnt worth the cabbage to swap these guys over to can motors unless you already own some of them, or you get them dirt cheap.....I’ve done that very swap on a 5344 with a vandy, only cause I got the engine for next to nothing and I have the tools and parts on hand to make it happen....

Norton posted:

AFAIK only the only J1 to get a PT tender was 5221 which Pat has duplicated. If you want a Hudson with a PT tender you pretty much have to stick to J3s which Lionel, 3rd Rail and Williams have done. All of the MTH unstreamlined Hudsons are J1s.

Pete

Pete,

If you go to the site, https://nycshs.files.wordpress...4/07/pt-tenders.pdf, it shows you nearly every Hudson and niagara to have gained a PT tender.

J1b #5203, #5204, #5211, #5214, #5415, #5222, and #5236.

J1c #5257, #5263, #5264, #5266, #5267, #5268, #5269, #5270, #5271, #5272, #5273, and #5274.

J1d #5291 and #5391.

J1e #5333, #5344, and #5401.

All of the J1 Hudsons above gained pt tenders. No J2 Hudsons had Pt tenders and at one point every J3a had a PT tender.

I am sorry to say that #5221 never had a PT tender, and the only j1 Hudson with scullin disk drivers and a PT tender was J1e #5344. #5344 was also the only J1 Hudson to every get scullin disk drivers.

Regardless of it being incorrect, Pat's 5221 it is still a beautiful locomotive. Plus, if he changed it to 5344, it wouldn't be unique anymore.

-PS.          Is it sad I have all this memorized like the back of my hand?

-Cole

Brain fade. It was the Scullin Disks that made 5221 unique among J1s not the PT tender.

Pete

harmonyards posted:

Cole, let me see here if I can answer some of your questions....John already answered one of them, so let’s recap his correct answer. The older Lionel Hudsons up to 5344 with the Vandy tender are all pullmor power....to make them any kind of performer, a good sized can motor swap is a must. All the CV Hudsons as well are Pullmor powered. Pete (Norton) has a great thread on his CV Pittman swap. The Hudson pictured above is a MTH piece. A J1E model that actually came to me as a 2 rail spoked driver model with 12 wheel tender. I acquired the PT from a Dreyfus, and repainted and re-lettered it. The paint on the locomotive itself is all original save for the smoke box, which I added that coloring. The cab number simply wiped off with a rag dampened with lacquer thinner. The black paint did not get affected by the lacquer thinner. I’m careful not to saturate the area. The white cab numbers don’t like the thinner and are literally wiped away fairly quickly. Done correctly, the black on the cab should be spotless clean, ready for new cab numbers. As far as new numbers go, I have a buddy who makes me super thin vinyl numbers that truly look like pad printed numbers when applied. Same for the tender lettering. I think that J3A you have, coupled to a PT, and numbered to 5429 would be a stunning piece, easy to do and a real head turner. You can shoot me an Email and I’ll put you in touch with my buddy Graham to help you with cab numbering. I’m sure he’d be glad to help.....he’s a railroader at heart....as far as doing a whole bunch of swapping around with the older Lionel Hudsons, 785, 783, and so on, with as many can motored Hudsons on the market today, it really isnt worth the cabbage to swap these guys over to can motors unless you already own some of them, or you get them dirt cheap.....I’ve done that very swap on a 5344 with a vandy, only cause I got the engine for next to nothing and I have the tools and parts on hand to make it happen....

Pat,

Thank you very muck for the help. Before I make the conversion I would like to get a second boiler shell for 5433 and a boiler front for 5444. That way I can renumber the 5444 headlight to 5429 and place it on the 5433 boiler front without marker lights. I want to do this because if I want to I can change the loco back to 5433 and it would look just like how it came out of the box. North Lima Works sells the 5433 shell and Lionel support sells the 5444 boiler front.

I also still need to get the PT tender. Grzyboski's Train Store sells them pretty cheap, all new and unopened, so I'll probably get it from them.

-Cole

J Class Hudson Fan posted:

Norton posted:

AFAIK only the only J1 to get a PT tender was 5221 which Pat has duplicated. If you want a Hudson with a PT tender you pretty much have to stick to J3s which Lionel, 3rd Rail and Williams have done. All of the MTH unstreamlined Hudsons are J1s.

Pete

Pete,

If you go to the site, https://nycshs.files.wordpress...4/07/pt-tenders.pdf, it shows you nearly every Hudson and niagara to have gained a PT tender.

J1b #5203, #5204, #5211, #5214, #5415, #5222, and #5236.

J1c #5257, #5263, #5264, #5266, #5267, #5268, #5269, #5270, #5271, #5272, #5273, and #5274.

J1d #5291 and #5391.

J1e #5333, #5344, and #5401.

All of the J1 Hudsons above gained pt tenders. No J2 Hudsons had Pt tenders and at one point every J3a had a PT tender.

I am sorry to say that #5221 never had a PT tender, and the only j1 Hudson with scullin disk drivers and a PT tender was J1e #5344. #5344 was also the only J1 Hudson to every get scullin disk drivers.

Regardless of it being incorrect, Pat's 5221 it is still a beautiful locomotive. Plus, if he changed it to 5344, it wouldn't be unique anymore.

-PS.          Is it sad I have all this memorized like the back of my hand?

-Cole

Sorry, the PT Tender link isn't working. Just google PT Tender and it will be one of the first links. It's also a pdf.

-Cole

Cole, good catch on my 5221....but heck, I’m not worried at all about it. The central did some crazy things to get these appliances out on the road where they belonged. Not everything that was retrofitted, redone, repaired or swapped over made it into the history books...especially when it came to drivers, the guys in the shops would use up whatever was handy to get a certain machine back on the road again. My grandad was a mechanic on the central right in the Hudson’s heydays, although assigned to the electric shop, during the war, he was everywhere working on whatever he even got to move a hudson down the reversing loop at Harmon to couple onto an outbound....”best day ever” he said....Grandad was working in the shops when the B&A sent their J2s to the central. Some kept their dinky 8 wheel tenders, some got 12 wheel tenders left over from PT swaps. All depended where the J2s were heading, and whether or not they’d fit on a specific turntable or not....Grandad said it was a mess, and there was no rhyme or reason to what they were doing and they just ablibbed as they went along.....it’s hard to keep up with everything that went on at the central. By rights, my layout is loaded with Niagaras, so there’d hardly be a hudson on the front of any of the top named trains.....they’d would have certainly been bumped to lessor trains and freight.......gotta love this hobby!...........Pat

I'm still curious, however, if the grey 785 open spoke wheels and axles will fit onto a century club 773. The locomotives are the same cast and it appears the only exterior difference is the shell color and the wheels.

You would need to change the axles as well because the 773 has Philips head screws holding the wheels while the 785 has what appears to be push ons. 773's magnetraction would be lost but it would definitely help its look.

If anyone has any ideas, I would very much like to hear them.

-Cole

J Class Hudson Fan posted:

I'm still curious, however, if the grey 785 open spoke wheels and axles will fit onto a century club 773. The locomotives are the same cast and it appears the only exterior difference is the shell color and the wheels.

You would need to change the axles as well because the 773 has Philips head screws holding the wheels while the 785 has what appears to be push ons. 773's magnetraction would be lost but it would definitely help its look.

If anyone has any ideas, I would very much like to hear them.

-Cole

Easiest thing to do on this instance would be a chassis swap. But one begs the question why? .....however, if you have a CC 773, you could probably find a 785 chassis on the bay and do the swap. I’d check to see if the rods and valve gear are interchangeable by part number, otherwise, you’ll have to source all of that for such a swap....also, keep in mind both of those engines have a derivative of the postwar 2426 tender, which is far from scale. I have a 785 I’m planning on doing a Pittman swap to, and I long ago sold off the tender when I found a suitable scale tender on the bay one day. .......also, in reading the PT tender chart on the NYCHS site, there’s a lot of question marks on where some PTs wound up...hmmmmmmm.....maybe my made up 5221 isnt as far off as we think ....ha ha ha!....everything on my railroad is open to interpretation.....and scrutiny.......and head scratching..........sometimes crying...........Pat

I certainly think the open spoked wheels look much better (of course). Cole, if you can come up with a solution, I hope you'll let us know. 

Pat, those anecdotes from/about your Grandad are fascinating to say the least...  

Mark in Oregon

J Class Hudson Fan posted:

I'm still curious, however, if the grey 785 open spoke wheels and axles will fit onto a century club 773. The locomotives are the same cast and it appears the only exterior difference is the shell color and the wheels.

You would need to change the axles as well because the 773 has Philips head screws holding the wheels while the 785 has what appears to be push ons. 773's magnetraction would be lost but it would definitely help its look.

You can't put the 785 drivers onto a Century Club 773. Besides the different wheel attachment method, the axles are a different diameter, which means the frame is also different between the two locomotives.

What I think you COULD do is use the drivers from the gold-plated 6-28062 700E on the CC773, but they're tough to find.

TRW

Rather than messing around with a '90s Pullmor hudson why not just get an MTH J1. They all have big Pittmans, spoke drivers, and some even had PT tenders. Then if you want TMCC just gut the electronics and put in ERR. Keep an eye on ebay for wrecked Hudsons or the PS1 20-3020-1 which show up all the time for small money.

From around 2005.

Pete

Norton posted:

Rather than messing around with a '90s Pullmor hudson why not just get an MTH J1. They all have big Pittmans, spoke drivers, and some even had PT tenders. Then if you want TMCC just gut the electronics and put in ERR. Keep an eye on ebay for wrecked Hudsons or the PS1 20-3020-1 which show up all the time for small money.

From around 2005.

Pete

Pete,

I looked at the MTH Hudsons and I have to say, I'm impressed. They have a high level of detailing only the k-line Hudson could top. It appears that they have made three models with the PT tender; the very common PS2 #5274 (as shown above), the rare PS2 5344 with scullin disk drivers, and the new PS3 #5334.

How hard would it be to convert one to ERR TMCC? I have never done this swap of command systems before.

-Cole

Its no harder than adding to TMCC to any other engine that has no command system except you have pull out the existing electronics first, maybe a bit simpler as you can reuse the existing tether. A Cruise Commander will easily fit in the engine and railsounds in the tender with room for at least two Fatboy speakers. Some of the detail you see has been added including the cab curtains and cab apron. Because it has a hard wire tether you won't have any serial data issues that can crop up with a Lionel wireless tether. Some modification of the smoke unit will be required like changing the resistor and separating the fan motor out from the circuit. You will have to provide a switch of some sort to generate the chuff signal. 

BTW Cab Number 5330 with a PT came in a freight set. 

Pete