Lionel 1946 2020 Turbine Back from the Dead

A fun project. Especially when the plan all comes together and it all works.

Dan

You did a great job on it.  Looks great too!

 

Side Rod 

Looks great Jake - glad she arrived on time.

Did the tender pieces go together OK?

 

I'm glad she will be in operation again!

Very nice Jake, you did a great job

Thanks, Alex

Very good job on your turbine, Jake. Looks like you've got a good runner for many, many years; should be a robust puller.

Bill 

Great job Jake,

 

I had a 671 version of this engine years ago and I traded it off for one of those Nickel Plate Berkshires from bak in the early 80s.

 

Did the smoke lanp work in your engine?

 

Thanks

Richard

So far, the only thing I've run into is a stripped out front wheel. Seems to run ok so I'll just be on the lookout for a replacement. The smoke bulb still works great. I've been using a few drops of mega steam and it does good. I still have some tuneup work to do on the whistle and I need to replace the cab steps and re-decal the front keystone. Other than that it was a fun project for the afternoon

Jake your 2020 looks great and you should be able to hand it down.  Lionel did a good job building PW locos.  Thanks for sharing.

 

That they did.

 

I even got up the courage to disassemble the E-Unit on it.  The first time I've done that and it wasn't as tough as I thought it was going to be.  Cleaned it all up and put it back together and it's working great.

 

Does anybody know of a source for a replacement front wheel?  It's the one with the smoke unit trigger pin on it.  I see a couple on Ebay, but they don't have the nickel rims, which I guess would be OK, but I want it to look fairly original.

I decided to mess around with that wheel some more today.  I ended up wrapping the axle in teflon plumbing tape and I put a dab of JB Weld in the wheel hub and a small amount on the axle itself and it's setting up.  So far so good and I didn't freeze up the mechanism with the epoxy  I'm going to let it sit overnight before I try running it, but it should be OK at least for awhile.  I'm still going to keep an eye out for a wheel at the next train show.  If it loosens up again, I've still got my 736 and all the others to play with while I look for the part.

I doubt if the plumbing tape and JB Weld are going to hold that wheel on for very long. JBW doesn't seem to have much shear strength. Try knurling the axle. 

Jake,

 

Be careful using liquid smoke in your 2020. Since it was designed for a tablet, the liquid will spill into the inside of the engine that you worked so hard on cleaning up. I am sure you had to remove a lot of residue from the old smoke tablets.

 

Instead of painting the red Pennsy key stone on the boiler front you could replace it with  new one. I think that the repro boiler front is available.That boiler front may have had 2020 on it in whiite numbers, but I am not sure.

 

Richard

Jake, I have good luck with Rich Sappelli for parts, his email is: repairinfo@juno.com. Tell him Luke sent you. Nice job on that turbine, I gave it a little thought about buying it, but I am glad it got a good home. As far as the smoke bulb and liquid smoke, just put a couple drops on the bulb when it is cooled off, and you should have no problems. Nothing like a pre-Magnetraction loco for smooth running.

It's definitely in a good home and I am careful about only using a few drops of fluid at a time.

 

My wheel fix seems to have worked great.  No play at all so I'll leave it alone for now.

 

Its a great engine for sure.  A definite favorite of mine now

Here's a video.  The last scene is just a fill in with a clip from my postwar figure 8 layout.

Wonderful!

This locomotive probably hasn't run since the late 1950s and sat in a junk box with a couple of other engines and cars  for all these years. From the condition of all of the stuff I found, and a report from a neighbor, the owners were pretty rough on their trans as boys.

 

You are to be commended Jake for bringing her 'back from the dead'

Great Job!! Looks great. This is what I love about postwar, you can take it apart piece by piece, clean each part and get it working as good as she was first built. I love the fact that with a little searching, you can still purchase parts even with something as as old as this piece.  These engines are built like tanks and it will give you many more years of service.

 

Try that with today's engines.......

great job Jake!  I agree about postwar both the engines andtransformers are very reliable. Here's a. Example video below. I bought this ZW for 45 dollars a few weeks ago on the forum with shipping looked inside it checked the wires and they were all great. Started Up like magic even the circuit breaker and light bulb still worked! Postwar trains were so good because the f3s had die cast frames seen below in a video. Omce again Jake great job!

 

 

 

Another one is thESE F3s I bought for 95 Forgoth! Oil them up new bulbs,attraction tires, and wire check and they are ready to go! sadly a huge wreck came but no trains were harmed and the f3s did not have a scratch I was lucky! Due to afaulty per war car with knuckle coupler! Here is the aftermath oh boy! 

A very nice job, Jake! Thank you for sharing.  It is quite a feeling of accomplishment taking an engine like this and putting it back into service after some 50+ years of inactivity.   Congrats again!

 

Bringing this thread back from the dead...

 

I found a replacement front wheel on ebay (and judging by the receipt that came in the box, it came from olsens) a couple weeks ago and purchased it.  It had the hole for the smoke unit puffer pin and after swapping that I installed the wheel.  Now it's running as good as new.  Now all I need is a new keystone decal for the boiler front and it'll really look nice.  

 

A member of another forum also sent me a replacement whistle relay quite awhile ago, so that is also working great again.

Jake, your body shell appears to look better after your rework. Did you re-paint it or touch it up some?

Whatever, you do good work.

Thanks, and nope.  The shell is all original with no touchup work (by me anyway).  I think I just scrubbed it down with some soap, water and a toothbrush, but that's it.  It has a number of paint chips but I don't mind them.

 

Also another thing to keep in mind, I didn't take the before picture with the shell on.  That's the picture C. Sam posted in his listing when it was for sale on the Buy/Sell board.

I just thought on that again.  I think I did rub some Pledge on it to shine it up a bit.  Not sure if that was before or after the pictures were taken.

jake, you might try this for that stripped wheel. Using a small cold chisel, renurl the axle. Place the axle on a vise or a V block if you have one, hold chisel on the nurled portion and strike sharply with a hammer, this will deform the axle end and allow you to repress it to the wheel, you may have to do it twice. I have done  this to my own engines with great success.  Good luck

Regards,

Joe Geiser

Jake, some green 2400 Lionel passenger cars would sure look good behind that new engine of yours. Don

 

I almost picked up a 671 with the green cars in February.  My Lionel JLC GG1 ended up winning over that though.  I may look for the cars at the next show.  They do make a nice looking set.

The 2020 looks great I am in the midst of doing the same thing to a 1946 2020, my pictures of the tear down look just like yours. Internally it was a mess lots of old grease and smoke residue tc etc. I naeed to know what you used for grease on the drive shaft and how much did you put in there. I cannot find that info anywhere and thats what I have to do next. This is my first project like this.

You can use Labelle 106 teflon grease, Lubriplate, or Lucas Red 'n Tacky grease. I use them all in various trains.

Rob

The question remains "how much" they kind of sit in a well, do I fill that? Thanks!!

No, don't fill the well.  You only need enough to get a light coating on the gears.  Use too much and you'll just be scraping it back off in the future.

 

I just used labelle's oil on mine which may or may not be recommended, but seems to work fine.

 

Good luck with your turbine project.  I had a lot of fun rebuilding mine, and am still having fun running it.

Thanks SantaFe158!!

I am gonna be a bit of a pest to you because you have been where I am going so bear with me. I have traced out all of my wiring from the motor to the e-unit to the pick ups, I made my own schematic, I have Lionels but I am  no electrician, next step is to remove all the old wiring, what guage wire do I use to replace it and is it braided wire or single strand? This 46 I got seems to be unmolestedand the shell is in really good shape, steps were a little bent but other that I am really pleased with it.

I too am working on what I beleve is a 1948 "D" model.  It is running great after following lubing instructions from the Net.  My problem is connecting the running (smoke) lamp to power.  I have a new bulb and holder, but not the part that attaches to the smoke chamber and the rear of the lamp.  Does anyone know what this part is named and where I can obtain one, and how it is wired to power?

Excellent work Jake and I am sure that it was very rewarding. Now that you have worked on an old postwar project, you will probably want to think about your next one. I started with a 2025 and since then I bought a 736, 2046, 2055, 622 and 623. They all run great and I enjoy every minute of the work. I also picked up a set of 2353s and the 2245 Texas Specials. The horns on both need work.

Jake,

 

 Very nice job on engine, I also enjoyed the song choice on your video. Very entertaining.

 

Art

Santa Fe,

   Nice job of restoration on your new turbine, Congrats!

Turbine on FasTrack way cool stuff.

PCRR/Dave

Good job Jake! This is postwar at its best!

 

franktrain

Jake, I just worked on a 2020 for a friend of mine. It was probably a bit of a newer model since it had a "regular" smoke unit in it. I replaced it with a conversion to use liquid smoke. It is up and running except for the lightbulb for the headlight. It is on its way. I use Brasseur Electric Train (http://www.traindoctor.com/service/service.asp) and Trainz (http://www.trainz.com) for parts. I am sure that there are many others out there, but I have found most that I need from these two.

 

Rick

It was nice to see this thread pop up again. Also encouraging to see several of you younger members 'discovering' the fun and satisfaction of restoring these fine 'toys' to their original running condition!

 

I always liked this particular model due to the uniqueness of the horizontal motor and smoke bulb. Of the literally hundreds (?) of thousands of these turbines produced over the years - the 1946 models stand out.

 

You did a fine job with the 2020 Jake.

 

Personally, as I run across old trains 'out there' I'll gladly post them here on the Forum first for others to enjoy.