Help please! May have over lubricated/grease on Lionel J1e 763e #5344 Hudson - No Traction

Kind of looks like you may be missing the traction tires.

Chris S.

Ken: I assume this is Lionel catalog # 18056(?). Anyway, can you provide a closer picture of the rear set of drivers wheel tread? It doesn't look like it had traction tires originally.... 

Second thought; is the rear center rail roller still springing up and down, or is it frozen in the extended position?

It looks like you said, there’s definitely a gap on the rear wheels hanging off the tracks, first check easy things like making sure your track didn’t get squashed while being stored, second, look at the rear truck and drawbar and make sure they  float on their springs like they should. I have seen one hudson that had the pickup roller lock up and that kept the wheels off the track....can’t really tell by the pics, but if I’m reading your post correctly did you take the rear truck off for some reason? ...........Pat

FireOne posted:

Kind of looks like you may be missing the traction tires.

Chris S.

Chris, that locomotive is not equipped with traction tires out of the box, it comes with a pair of center drivers that can be added with traction tire grooves....they dont look like they have been added to this fella’s locomotive.....

If the two pickups move freely and the front and rear trucks move freely on their spring I would put the engine on your track with roadbed and see what happens there.  To be honest it looks like someone has been walking on your outside track.  It is definitely not level as shown in the picture.

Trouble shoot: remove the rear truck and try it.

If you didn't store it with the boiler facing due north (i.e., aligned with the earth's magnetic poles), maybe it lost it's magnetraction? 

Thank you everyone for replying... to provide more info to everyone...

No traction tires.  What you see is how it was delivered by Lionel.  It came with a spare set of center drive wheels but after seeing that it doesn't look like they're making complete contact, I'm hesitant to switch them out.  What are "traction tire grooves" mentioned above?

The two pickups, front and rear trucks all move freely.  The rear is a little stiff but moving.  It had to be removed to get to the armature.

Not sure which catalog this was in... saw it in a store in 98 and had to have it kind of thing   The Vandi tender sold me and growing up with a 736 Berkshire, I saw this as an "upgrade".  

I placed it on the other two sets of track on the platform... both fastrack and similar track to the outside.  Still looks like there's a similar gap between the drive wheels and track.  I do have more track stored away so I can pop what's down and lay the other that I have.  Right now, I'm going to remove the rear truck again as suggested and see if it sits better on the track.

I really appreciate all the suggestions and replies.  I don't have many options when it comes to people into trains or shops around where I live, so thank you... you guys are really it for me...

Attaching closer pictures as well...

Rear truck was put back on wrong...   took it off, ran it with the passenger cars attached, took right off.  Now to figure out how to put the rear truck back on the right way.

Ken, you say the rear is stiff, are you talking about the rear truck? If so, you may have pinched the draw bar under the screw.....try loosening the big screw that retains the draw bar......it should float on the shouldered part of the screw........you can’t remove the draw bar cause it has wires attached to it for the IR pick up....you could just loosen that screw and see if the drawbar frees up a bit, if it does look closely at the screw, it should bottom out against the loco, and have the drawbar under it.........Pat

Do you need some pics Ken?....I have that same unit....

As I recall, the rear truck is mounted on/through the ash pan (the curved sheet steel piece right below the firebox), and there are 2 locating pins cast into the frame which must go through the holes in the ash pan. If they do not, this could jack up (down, actually) the rear truck. When you re-installed the truck/ash pan, did you align these pins and holes? I ask because, well, I've done it (missed the holes), though I caught it before a test flight, so I am not sure of the effect..

You don't need any traction tires or the like; if it sat right before you messed with it, it will sit right again. 

Got it!  The only thing I did different was flip the piece that sits on top of the spring between the truck...  and maybe screwed it back in without pinching the draw bar.  So thank you all for leading me down this path and suggesting to remove the rear truck.  And I like Mixed Freight's answer 

Great! Glad you got it, just about the time I was gonna send you some pics, the shop supervisor came by wondering what in the world I was up too.....on her snack time.....