I have the Chessie GP 30#6-28559 with the misaligned steps. Come to find out it's not an engineering problem but rather an assembly problem. Simply switch the misaligned trucks and the steps will align perfectly. The trucks come off easily since they are the new design.
hope this helps
romiller
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Would this be switching the trucks out with the newer production GP35 trucks? On my Santa Fe GP30, the front and rear trucks are (or rather were since I fixed it) symmetric with each other so swamping the front for the rear and rear for the front would not fix the alignment problem.
If you measure from the center of the truck to the center of the steps each truck has a different dimension. When I switched the trucks around it solved the problem.
romiller
You should change to title to "problem solved" or "easy fix". Alot of folks have been trying different modifications to correct this problem, they'll be disgusted to know the could have just 180ed the trucks and dropped them out of the chassis, switched and reinstalled. You may even want to let Lionels service dept, know of your discovery.
pictures?
Im with CJack, do you have any pictures. I did not buy a GP30 for this reason. How hard is it to switch trucks? Are we talking the side frames or the entire truck? Just looking at my GP9 they measure the same, I guess it is different on the 30.
Im with CJack, do you have any pictures. I did not buy a GP30 for this reason. How hard is it to switch trucks?
Lionels Liondrive trucks come off in an instant. You turn the truck 180 degrees perpendicular to the chassis and it will slide right off. Push it back in at 180 degrees and turn it parallel to the chassis to replace. The worst part will be disconnecting and reconnecting the electrcoupler. There are keys and slots for lack of a better description, operates just like a radiator cap, if that helps.
You should change to title to "problem solved" or "easy fix". Alot of folks have been trying different modifications to correct this problem, they'll be disgusted to know the could have just 180ed the trucks and dropped them out of the chassis, switched and reinstalled. You may even want to let Lionels service dept, know of your discovery.
This fix would not have worked for my GP-30 as the front and rear trucks were identical in every way. I just tried it to see how it would turn out. However, I greatly hope that this works for the vast majority of owners of the GP-30.
So there are two different GP-30s, some with identical trucks and some that have different trucks...all from the same catalog?
Here are pics of my GP30 of the front and rear of the engine. Look at the break shoes. At it can be seen, the front and rear trucks are symmetric and as such an 180 will not work for me. Again, I hope an 180 works for most everyone else.
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