Lionchief Hogwarts engine issue-please help!

I apologise for reposting this topic, but the original was deleted for some reason.

I opened up the engine, and this is what we're looking at, wires and curcuic boards, primarily, what exactly do I need to look for?

I would pull the motor and check the gearing. Also, the motor mount may have simply come loose.

Did some research, and turns out this engine has a DC motor, which you can see in my image above, its the part with the brass top on it. Now, I don't know if this is normal or not, but that brass top on the motor rotates. Please forgive my ignorance, as I have no experience with the internal workings of these engines.

Yes it is DC.  It can be run off of AC or DC because there's a rectifier converting AC to DC in it.     Yes it is supposed to rotate...  have you made sure everything is all oiled and the gear is lubed?  Might be as simple as that.

this guy can fix your Hogwarts up with a better motor.

http://timkorepairdepot.com/Home.html

I appreciate the help guys. Yeah, I oiled the wheels and side rods, but Ill check out the motor gear to see if it needs some oil as well.

I feel silly for asking, but how exactly do I remove the dc motor in order to check the gear?

I opened up the bottom of the engine to get to the gear, and this is what it looks like. The grayish white you see is grease. I rotated the brass top n the motor, and the gears seem to turn fine from what I can tell. Does everything look ok here?

Went ahead and applied some more oil and grease to the gears, about to test the engine again to see if it helped, wish me luck!

After oiling the gears, and testing the engine, it's seems to have helped, though it's still not quite 100%. It's not running as slowly as it was, and there is no longer a grinding/scraping noise, so I assume it was indeed the gear causing the issue.

The gear looks like it could be a little dry. Hard to tell in the picture. But seems like greasing it helped. Have you cleaned the wheels and the track real good? That could be a secondary issue contributing to your problem. Sounds like the grinding improved. Also check your track connections and make sure they're good and tight. If you have a meter you could check continuity / resistance between the joints.

Yes, the wheels are clean, but I haven't wiped down my track yet, I'll try that.

Polar Express 1225 posted:

Did some research, and turns out this engine has a DC motor, which you can see in my image above, its the part with the brass top on it. Now, I don't know if this is normal or not, but that brass top on the motor rotates. Please forgive my ignorance, as I have no experience with the internal workings of these engines.

Make sure when you rotate the brass flywheel that the wheels are turning. If not, the brass flywheel may have come loose on the motor shaft causing erratic operation.

Yes sir, the wheels were turning with no problems. Thank you for the tip!

• Also check the grease on the gears. Make sure has not hardened and is actually coating the gears lightly.

Yes, the grease is doing fine so far. I put a little bit more on the gears, along with some oil, and rotated the gears a couple times to work it in well.

Just did another test run, and the engine seems to be running much better now. The only question I have now is what could have caused the gears to get dry, and how can I prevent it from happening again?

I have seen a few MTH and Williams come from the factory dry. The grease guy must have been on a potty break. We not automatically grease new engines.

Steve

Another thing to check is if the gear mesh is too tight.  I've seen some instances where the gear was too tight and binding and actually needed a thin shim to adjust the mesh so they would turn freely.