Help with new Lionel SW7

Might be that the drive shaft to the truck is not seated properly, or that something is binding in the truck itself. My B&M NW switcher had a similar problem. I'd swap it out for a new one.  There are no grease ports - the screws hold the truck to the mounting post, which holds the assembly to the chassis, if I recall correctly.

I dropped the truck, opened up the gearbox and found very little grease.  I added grease reassembled driveshaft and now it is very quiet.  I am going to drop the front truck now and do the same just in case.

T4TT posted:

I dropped the truck, opened up the gearbox and found very little grease.  I added grease reassembled driveshaft and now it is very quiet.  I am going to drop the front truck now and do the same just in case.

Just my opinion but, I believe Lionel is becoming famous for delivering models without lubrication. My first Legacy SP GS-4 Daylight made all sorts of squealing noises, right out of the box. After lubricating all the side rods and axle bearings, it still squealed! After removing the boiler, discovered it was the motor shaft. The new ones at the local hobby shop all did the same thing.

Its good to hear you resolved the issue. Hopefully other SW7 owners heed your advice.

I grease the gearbox of every Loco before it hits the track. Lionel adds little to no grease and often times what is there is stuck on the side of the gearbox and not on the gears.

The new H10 has a removable bottom plate on the chassis which gives full access to the gears, this is a huge plus.

Needless to say, my H10 had just a bit of "Vaseline like" grease on the worm. The intermediate and axle gear were bone dry.

I also recall Alex M opening the VL Niagara gearbox revealing totally dry gears as well....on a $1700 locomotive

I was putting mine through a shakedown last night and the same thing was starting to happen - that screech! Opened mine up and did the same. Now much happier and quiet!

Glad to hear.  I dropped the front truck and its gear box was properly greased.  But I figured I better check while I was in there.  The front driveshaft, for me was harder to reassemble.  Anyone have any tricks on that?  I felt like I needed a third hand.

After watching the video I would have gone bonkers if it was mine. Glad you got it corrected!

If not too much trouble, could one of you please give a step by step description of how to get to the gearbox to add some grease?

It would be greatly appreciated.

I don't want to break two things while trying to fix one.

So, here is how I did it (only because I was not able to inject grease into the gearbox from the underside of the truck)

remove the cab and shell as described in a previous post.

remove the speaker housing by unscrewing its 4 screws.

That will expose the single screw holding the truck to the chasis

Unscrew that screw and that will allow the truck to fall away from the chasis.  Pay attention to how the coupler and p/u and ground wires are routed.

Unscrew the 2 small screws on top of the gear box.  There are two screws on bottom of the gearbox (underside of truck).  One is a grease port (i think that is what it supposed to be) the other is a long screw that holds the truck halves together.  I can't remember which is which, if you unscrew a short screw then tighten and go for the other one.

With a small flatblade screw driver I separated the gearbox halves a squezed lithium grease on the worm gear and in the cavity too.

I screwed the gearbox back together.  

The worst part of this was mating the driveshaft back together.  Once you get them mated screw the truck back to the chasis from the topside.

Here is how my SW7 after a little work...

Pros
Excellent sounds, the little fatboy speaker kills the ridiculous pancake speaker in my Legacy S2 switcher.

Fixed Pilot with SIMPLE Kadee installation-thank you Lionel!

Excellent detail, this body is actually an SW7, not the NW2 as advertised by Lionel a couple years ago (I left my dealer holding the bag on 2 of those supposed "NW2s").

This engine matches VERY closely the pics I found on line-even the color of the bell..good job Lionel.

This is a GREAT smoker!

This engine has the little PCB that emits the sensor track beam, which I think is very fun.

Cons
Come on, no grease in the gearbox?

Both truck screws were loose (how can a repeat of the NW2 debacle be allowed to happen?)

While I greatly appreciate the fixed coupler it would be great if Lionel offered a pilot insert to close up that gaping hole.  They go through the trouble of pre-drilling the chasis and providing a coupler shim so why not finish the job so we could have a more prototypical front end.

All in all I am pleased with this engine.  I was going to open it up to unplug the couplers and glue in Artistta figures, so working on the gearbox was not the end of the world for me.  But if I had wanted to play with this engine as soon as I unboxed it I would have been hacked.

T4TT:

Thanks for the detailed instructions. I will file away as my SW7 runs quietly...so far!

I also purchased this SW7 and it ran great for a few weeks and then started make a grinding noise. I feared the little or no grease scenario, however I was surprised to find that it did have grease in the gear boxes. Since I was in there anyway I removed all the factory grease that I could and repacked it with new grease. Once reassembled the grinding sound was gone. I don't know what kind of grease they use at the factory but it wasn't better than the red-n-tacky that I replaced it with. After that I regreased my NW2, just in case. Also the above instructions for removing the rear truck are spot on, Thank you @T4TT for those.

T4TT posted:

So, here is how I did it (only because I was not able to inject grease into the gearbox from the underside of the truck)

remove the cab and shell as described in a previous post. 

T4TT, I apologize for being dense here but for the life of me I can not find a previous post with instructions on removing the cab and shell.  Can you point me to it?  Thanks for your help.

Disregard.  For anyone looking in the future, the cab portion has two screws securing it at the rear and it has two tabs at the front of the cab.  Those tabs need a little encouragement to pop out.

One question for anyone else who owns one of these SW7's.  Is yours really, really slow?  I realize it only has one motor but mine is terribly slow.  I have to run it 100% wide open for it have any speed whatsoever.  If I ran any other engine I own like that, it would almost fly off the track (including single motor LC+).  I appreciate anyone who owns a new SW7 letting me know.  Thanks.

@MikeH did you know that when a loco is designated a "switcher" under the Legacy system, the speed steps are halved.  I guess the idea is to give an operator more "resolution" for slow-speed switching.

In real life, an SW- switcher could only go about 45 mph.  And I bet many spent their entire careers running slower than that, unless they were dead in tow as part of a road freight, on the way to the repair shop, etc.  How big is your layout?  If you really don't like your Legacy version, there are plenty of other, faster-running switcher models out there.

I am sort of supprised that you think it is too slow. Usually my gripe with my locos is that with just a little throttle they take off like warp 9. This one seems to be done right.

Thanks, Ted S and Choochoo1972. 

I should have been more clear.  I already exchanged this engine once because of a problem.  I don't want to hold onto this one if it has problems too.  I'm trying to determine if I should keep it.

I know next to nothing about Legacy engines.  This is my first one and I don't even have Legacy yet.  I'm controlling it with the Universal Remote and the app.  I just want to make sure I'm not holding onto an engine that's not working correctly.

It's fine with me if it's slow.  It does pull.  I hooked it up to a consist of a dummy engine and a seven cars (4 of which were heavy, die-cast hoppers.  It had no problem pulling it.

I realize you haven't seen it operate but does this sound okay to you guys: slower than most engines but pulls good?  If that's the way a Legacy switcher is supposed to perform, then so be it.  Thanks.

I was having trouble with my SW7 also in reverse, found 'Help with new SW7' , thank goodness.   I did determine the small screw on the bottom of the Trunk toward the inside, not the large toward the outside is to lube up the gear box.  I used the same tube of grease I used on the grease hole on my steam engines for the gear box.  The front took 1 application the rear truck took 2, with a run in between to spread the grease around.  If your not sure about the correct screw loosen it several turns only then see if the truck has more vertical play, if it does WRONG SCREW, tighten it back up.

Reading RR posted:

I was having trouble with my SW7 also in reverse, found 'Help with new SW7' , thank goodness.   I did determine the small screw on the bottom of the Trunk toward the inside, not the large toward the outside is to lube up the gear box.  I used the same tube of grease I used on the grease hole on my steam engines for the gear box.  The front took 1 application the rear truck took 2, with a run in between to spread the grease around.  If your not sure about the correct screw loosen it several turns only then see if the truck has more vertical play, if it does WRONG SCREW, tighten it back up.

Hey David,  in your comment about adding grease to the gearboxes, what do you mean by an "application?"

Also, what kind of grease did you use, and how did you get it down the grease port to the gearbox?

I use labelle 106 grease, I snip the tip off and it seals a good seal for the steam engine lube ports.  Included a web picture of it.  This is what I use and have not had any problems yet.  But this is my personal choice.  It is readily available at many hobby shops.

https://labelle-lubricants.com...06-grease-with-ptfe/

Reading RR posted:

I use labelle 106 grease, I snip the tip off and it seals a good seal for the steam engine lube ports.  Included a web picture of it.  This is what I use and have not had any problems yet.  But this is my personal choice.  It is readily available at many hobby shops.

https://labelle-lubricants.com...06-grease-with-ptfe/

 

Labelle 106 has been my choice of grease for many years, but I never thought to snip off the tip.

How much did you put in the grease ports of your SW7?

Until the squealing stopped, took several tries.

Like David (READING RR), I found that adding grease through the grease ports was sufficient to stop the rubbing/grinding sound coming from the gearboxes. Thumbs down to the factory for not properly lubricating the gearboxes, but props to the design team at Lionel for thinking of ease of maintenance by including grease ports.

I find it interesting that the previous switchers with this power train seemed fine, and then this happens with the lubrication.

David @Reading RR I thought this was a brand-new design.  What were some of the product numbers of the previous run, what year were they made?

The NW2s released a year ago inaugurated the use of the chassis/drivetrain used in the SW7s.

And the Alco S-2's from 2014 have a similar if not the same power train design.

Reading RR posted:

And the Alco S-2's from 2014 have a similar if not the same power train design.

The SW7 and the previously released Legacy NW2, which was delivered a little over a year ago, share an all-new powertrain. It's actually very different from the powertrain in the S-2.

Dave Olson: "The engine [the NW2] has had many improvements made over the S2 version we did a number of years ago. The motor has been moved to a horizontal configuration which allowed us to remove some redundant gearing to reduce the system friction. We made a new speaker enclosure and put in the standard 40mm speaker, so the sounds are clear and loud just like a regular Legacy diesel. We've also added the track IR."

Yes, but the trucks where the problem is as far as I can tell from my S-2 are the same design. 

MikeH posted:

One question for anyone else who owns one of these SW7's.  Is yours really, really slow?  I realize it only has one motor but mine is terribly slow.  I have to run it 100% wide open for it have any speed whatsoever.  If I ran any other engine I own like that, it would almost fly off the track (including single motor LC+).  I appreciate anyone who owns a new SW7 letting me know.  Thanks.

I own two of the new SW7's with Bluetooth and yes, the rum slow. But that is by design as others have mentioned. I ran my first one with just the universal remote and then later with a new Legacy base with a Cab-1L remote. You have more control with the Legacy remote and you can change the momentum from Low, Medium, and High, which it turns affects how quickly the unit realonds to the throttle.

I just received an email from FedEx that my Lionel sent me a package. This means that my SW7 is on it's way back to me from Lionel Service in NC.

I did not want to do the internal gear lubrication myself, likely voiding the warranty and possibly breaking something else, so I had called for an RA on May 16th.

Of course I later found out about Lionel's move to a new facility and patiently waited for my new engine to be repaired. I am keeping my fingers crossed and do expect to receive my engine back still in new condition and run quietly without the grinding, squealing sounds that I described in my documentation sent to Lionel and as others noted in the above postings. This, I hope is good news to all as it means that Lionel Service is up and running again!

I will post when the engine arrives on 8/23 with hopefully good news! Timing is good as I have a new layout to use for the test run.

@T4TT Thank You for the detailed instructions, they are spot on! My exact loco squealed loudly right out of the box as originally stated by others in this thread. I have since disassembled and re-greased both gear boxes and my loco runs beautifully!

@peteh70 glad the info helped you out!

As has been noted, the trucks have grease ports, so why do a major disassembly to lubricate the gear boxes???

When I got my SW-7 a year ago, it had the same problem--making a grinding sound. I amply lubricated both gear boxes through the grease ports, and the grinding sound was gone. Why do more?

BTW, I really love this switcher. The slow-speed operation is outstanding. I have so much fun making up and breaking down trains at prototypical speeds.