Lionel Challenger Driveshaft Issue

Picture is not the best, but you can see the coupler and the brass(?) pivot point on the driveshaft. 

Bummer ! However, you'll get an intimate knowledge of this loco tearing it down.

Good Luck !

Ron H posted:

Bummer ! However, you'll get an intimate knowledge of this loco tearing it down.

Good Luck !

Hopefully intimate enough that you can put it back together again after you tear it down. Suggest taking  photos as you disassemble, if you decide to do it yourself.

Not to discredit the two posters above who are great.

maybe you could email or wait for a few techs to reply? I don't think it's terribly hard. I believe the handrails on the rear of the cab have to come off if this is the one I'm thinking of?

Alex M might know better? Here's a sample post of his.

https://ogrforum.com/...-the-boiler-pictures

here's the VL big boy if that's close?

https://ogrforum.com/...of-lionel-vl-big-boy

https://ogrforum.com/...boy-tons-of-pictures

I like Alex's insights and experience

HOME OF THE JADA RAILROAD"

I’d like to find a diagram of the Challenger if possible, if not I’ll carefully proceed my way into it and use the Big Boy’s as a point of reference. 

On another note, I found the pin, which appears to be broken. Based off Lionel’s parts website it looks like I’ll have to get a whole driveshaft assembly (only $12 at least. Kind of a bummer that it had an issue right out of the box, but it could always be worse I guess!

I also noticed the fans for the smoke units seems to be a little loud, so I may as well check that out while I’m in there! I’ll try to get some pictures and post them for if anyone else was to have the same/similar issue

The front power truck should come off pretty easily, just be careful not to lose the spring and curved washer.  There will be a couple of wires to unplug, and note the routing of the wires over the cross-member.  As far as the smoke units, I'd just replace the motors if they're loud, they don't get better.

Thanks! Ordered the driveshaft from Lionel, I’ll probably atleast take a look at the smoke units and see if there’s anything causing the excessive noise. Would hate to have to replace them already, they’re brand new still! 

The motors are only a few bucks, I'm not suggesting replacing the whole smoke unit!

I didn’t know you could just replace the motors for the smoke unit, I figured they were built to not be fixed like most things are now. I’ll see if I can find a part number. Thanks!

As it turns out, smoke units undergo repairs a lot as they're one of the most frequent maintenance items on these locomotives.  I personally use MTH smoke motors in most of my repairs, MTH BE-0000041-5

About this time last year I also picked up a practically new VL Challenger. The dynamo/Injector smoke u it was extremely noisy, after probably 10 hours of run time it quited down and works great now. 

Thanks for the tip, I’ll try running it for a while and see if it settles down once I fix the driveshaft issue. Hopefully all goes smoothly!