Hello everyone, I went on a bit of a purchase spree and acquired a number of used PS2 / Legacy engines, a number of them have some quirks I'm looking for help identifying:
- MTH Conrail SD80MAC (PS2) (20-20027-1): This engine runs perfectly fine out of all the used I bought, however it makes a clicking noise on curves near the rear engine, I've found a pickup roller (Farthest to the rear) that is very loose at the base even with the screw tightened down (tried swapping it with a front pickup roller (closest to the front) and both were loose on that pickup spot), is there anything I can do to tighten it up so it doesn't wiggle all over creation? (The frontmost pickup is also a bit loose as well but nowhere near as bad as the furthest rear roller). Could I also just remove that roller and only run with the first 3 to see if that makes a difference?
- Lionel BNSF SD70MAC (LEGACY) (6-81137): Engine was sputtering pretty badly at low speeds (sometimes stopping and rev'ing up on Railsounds till it shoots off), I tried to isolate if an oddy issue by turning off oddy, engine still seems to sputter at low speeds though. (I am using a CAB-1 remote, have read that the CAB-1L performs better at low speed but not sure if that will make a difference - I would just splurge for the #990 if it really makes that much of a difference for low speed ops.) I think it may be the rear truck/motor as it makes a consistent squealing noise going around my test loop. I attempted oiling the roller's / axles but it doesn't seem to make a difference (I'm guessing I will probably need to buy some grease and try greasing the gears). The smoke unit on this seems to get extremely hot as well (I measured ~104 on the plastic on the outside and ~126 at the reservoir), is that a cause for concern or do legacy engines in general run hotter than normal on their smoke units?
- MTH Conrail SD50 (PS2) (20-2578-1): Engine sputters at low speed, although I am guessing it just needs to be greased on gear ports (I tried oiling axles/rollers). It was purchased new and being a 2005 engine sitting in the box for 15 years I assume the grease is all but gone, but wondering if I should look anywhere else (It's a PS2 3V board so hopefully no board issues).
- Lionel CSX SD80MAC (TMCC) (6-18296): Engine smoke unit is not operating at all, when I pulled it open some wires were squished against the frame / rubber piece and flattened out, one of which was going to the smoke unit. (I moved them out of the way but I'm wondering if I should cut them and cap them in between with a replacement wire). It also seems to have issues on O-36 curves despite being rated on O-31 (It derailed and shorted on it's first run around the loop, several subsequent runs at low speed didn't derail), the MTH SD80MAC was able to run circles without issue so I'm wondering if the motor / truck assembly is having trouble turning properly on curves. (MTH truck assembly has the flanged wheels on the outer trucks and non-flanged wheels on inner wheelset, whereas the lionel only has the 2 first wheelsets flanged, so I am wondering if it could be related to that?)
Thanks all for any assistance you can give! I'll be buying grease regardless since I have a feeling that will improve performance on a number of engines I own (Have only ever owned oil for doing pickup roller/axle oiling).
Speaking of grease: are there any recommendations that work well for both lionel/mth?
