Lionel NYC Yard Goat #7745 issues

Two "easy" things it might be. Either a loose radio board or loose wires. I just took one of these apart and found the wire nut had fallen off the hot wires, that is the wires from the pickup rollers to the boards. There are four held together with a wire nut.

Remove the screws furthest back under the cab plus the ones behind each cylinder. Lift the shell off carefully. Lots of wires under there and its packed tight.

If the wires look OK pull up on the front board and push down to reseat.

You can also disconnect the wires  between the shell and frame. Connector for the headlight, wire nut for the antenna, and push the cab light from inside the cab out.

Also make sure no wires are rubbing on the flywheel.

Then try it on the track again. It will run without the tender, just won't have sound.

Pete

Norton posted:

Two "easy" things it might be. Either a loose radio board or loose wires. I just took one of these apart and found the wire nut had fallen off the hot wires, that is the wires from the pickup rollers to the boards. There are four held together with a wire nut.

Remove the screws furthest back under the cab plus the ones behind each cylinder. Lift the shell off carefully. Lots of wires under there and its packed tight.

If the wires look OK pull up on the front board and push down to reseat.

You can also disconnect the wires  between the shell and frame. Connector for the headlight, wire nut for the antenna, and push the cab light from inside the cab out.

Also make sure no wires are rubbing on the flywheel.

Then try it on the track again. It will run without the tender, just won't have sound.

 

Pete

Ok will do, I had this in for service once where I bought it, and I think the guy did more harm than good! I believe the smoke unit is unplugged too so I might as well check that while I'm at it.

This engine also has an AC smoke regulator which fail on a regular basis. Check it out and tell us what you find.

Pete

Norton posted:

This engine also has an AC smoke regulator which fail on a regular basis. Check it out and tell us what you find.

Pete

Pulled up on the front board and resat it. I can’t really tell if that improved the connection or not because sometimes it works well, other times it does not. I did not see any loose wires so I guess I should look closer. The smoke unit still does nothing, no heat no fan. The wires are extremely brittle as for a few years this was stored in my cold garage so moving wires around is a gamble. Thanks for your help so far!

Is it still starting and stopping on its own. Sparks under the rollers might be weak springs or the mounting screws are loose. 

Do you have an ammeter on your transformer or a multimeter that can measure up to ten amps? If so see if there is a correlation between the sparking or stopping and a sudden rise in current. Normal running should be under 2 amps especially with a dead smoke unit.

Pete

Your local shop could at least looked at it for you. Gee, they may have received an order for parts. If the unit uses the R2LC board I would start there.

Sorry for the long time without updates, I've tried opening it and still nothing, I can't find where the pickup roller wires are and I believe one may be off due to the fact its acting like an old lionel light up car with one roller, its not getting enough voltage I mean... Here's a video of it:

If anyone would still like to help me, please don't hesitate!

This can be a few different things. I notice in the video the tender light flickers too. Can you take close up pictures of the wheels and pick up rollers on the tender and engine. If it's not that , then run the engine again while it's moving put your hand over the engine about 3 to 4 inches above it and see if the flickering stops. If it does that indicates a signal issue. Next take a muti meter and set it to  continuity with beep sound , put one probe on one pick up roller and one on the other. If you hear a beep sound that means you still have a connection. If not you have a broken wire. 

Alex 

 Don't overlook the engines wheels. The stalling on just straight clean track. It should run without stalling as long as one roller is connected and clean. You can do a quick check by placing a short piece of electrical tape on your center rail. Place the engine on the track so that the tape insulates one roller at a time. You should have lights and power both times. If not just move the engine from side to side like you were doing to see if it powers up just to rule these out.

 I had a new Legacy 0-8-0 that ran much like this. Wiggled it much like your doing to get it to power up. The final  cure was to install a small wire with a ring at each end. One end attached to the engine and one to the tender. Used the body mount screws. What this did was link the tenders wheels to the engine to provide a more solid connection to the outside rails. Remember. 2 drive wheels have rubber traction tires. 2 are blind and basically float over the rails. That leaves 2 metal flanged wheels to make solid contact. If they aren't squeaky clean. Your engine will not run well at slow speeds. My engine exhibited this even after cleaning a new engine. The added wire seems to have solved it. The newer Legacy 0-6-0's and 0-8-0's have a wire tether just for this reason. A switcher that won't operate well at slow speed isn't fun if you have to constantly jostle the engine to make a connection.

Here are the photos, I haven't had a chance to try any of the things you guys have told me too, I guess I'll have to tomorrow, thank you for the help so far!

 I'd try giving the wheels a good cleaning. In the pics one of the flanged drivers look like it  has a lot of crud on it. These switchers only have the drive wheels to provide contact to the outside rails. If you look under Lionel's newer offerings. They even have wipers going to the axle of the trailing truck on road engines.. Years ago when everything ran at warped speeds these things didn't seem to be as much of an issue. I think they now realize how important getting good contact to the rails with the slow speeds they can now be run at. The new Legacy 0-8-0's went to a tether just for this reason. Even the tender now features axle wipers.

Well the good news is, both pickup rollers are working, I tried cleaning the wheels, I guess I did it wrong because it still flickers, I had the shell off too so it couldn't have been the signal, I don't know what else to possibly do to this engine :\

I tried doing more cleaning on the track and wheels, it seems to be working a tad better so I guess I should just try cleaning it more? I'm using rubbing alcohol to help clean it. 

If you have hobby oil that is conductive, you might want to try putting a small drop of oil on each end of each roller (engine and tender) and work it in. Use your finger to slowly turn the roller and make sure oil doesn't get on the surface of the roller. Run the engine slowly at first to help the oil settle in.

Well, the engine just magically started working properly again (minus the smoke and the cab light). I thought maybe its because I was using it on tubular track, but it works fine on fasttrack too! I changed my source of power (from a 1950s ZW with updated internals) to a 135 watt powerhouse and a powermaster, that may have played a part. The only problems I have now is the smoke unit, the buzzing from the tender when there is no sound on, and the cab light, very minuscule things that still bug me. Anyways thanks for all your help so far!  

Here is a video shot just about 30 minuets ago

Have you had the shell off? Its easy for the cab light to fall back into the boiler. As for the smoke unit make sure you hit Aux1 9 as well as having the smoke switch on. If still no smoke the resistor (8 ohm) may be burned out. This engine also has an AC regulator which are prone to failing.

Pete

I would like to ask if the magic occurred when you went from your Christmas layout back to your basement layout? When Lionel first released TMCC there were issues with the early bases. They would work fine on most layouts as it did on mine. However, when I installed it on my Christmas floor layout it was flaky with crazy signal issues including having to change locomotive ID’s to single digits. It was really apparent when I moved to my new home where I set my Christmas layout on the floor built on a slab. My receptacle grounds were tested and all was good. So, I went to my dealer and he said the early bases were flaky and that Lionel had replaced early bases with new ones. I suspect the early bases had weak  signal issues. However, there was a five year gap here and the replacement program was no longer an option. He offered me to take a current production base home and try it on my floor layout and guess what? It worked perfectly with the new base. He then sold it to me at cost and my woes were over. What I remember is the early bases can be identified by the fact that the LED’s on top were rounded where the newer bases were flat and flush without the case. Check the LED’s and then move the setup back to your Christmas layout if this applies. Hope this helps.

Norton posted:

Have you had the shell off? Its easy for the cab light to fall back into the boiler. As for the smoke unit make sure you hit Aux1 9 as well as having the smoke switch on. If still no smoke the resistor (8 ohm) may be burned out. This engine also has an AC regulator which are prone to failing.

Pete

No I can see he bulb its out, and I don’t know about the smoke unit, I think maybe a wire may be off because all the wires are very brittle inside 

NYC Z-MAN posted:

I would like to ask if the magic occurred when you went from your Christmas layout back to your basement layout? When Lionel first released TMCC there were issues with the early bases. They would work fine on most layouts as it did on mine. However, when I installed it on my Christmas floor layout it was flaky with crazy signal issues including having to change locomotive ID’s to single digits. It was really apparent when I moved to my new home where I set my Christmas layout on the floor built on a slab. My receptacle grounds were tested and all was good. So, I went to my dealer and he said the early bases were flaky and that Lionel had replaced early bases with new ones. I suspect the early bases had weak  signal issues. However, there was a five year gap here and the replacement program was no longer an option. He offered me to take a current production base home and try it on my floor layout and guess what? It worked perfectly with the new base. He then sold it to me at cost and my woes were over. What I remember is the early bases can be identified by the fact that the LED’s on top were rounded where the newer bases were flat and flush without the case. Check the LED’s and then move the setup back to your Christmas layout if this applies. Hope this helps.

Well it runs my other engine perfectly, and the lights ontop are flat 

TheTrainMain posted:

NYC Z-MAN posted:

I would like to ask if the magic occurred when you went from your Christmas layout back to your basement layout? When Lionel first released TMCC there were issues with the early bases. They would work fine on most layouts as it did on mine. However, when I installed it on my Christmas floor layout it was flaky with crazy signal issues including having to change locomotive ID’s to single digits. It was really apparent when I moved to my new home where I set my Christmas layout on the floor built on a slab. My receptacle grounds were tested and all was good. So, I went to my dealer and he said the early bases were flaky and that Lionel had replaced early bases with new ones. I suspect the early bases had weak  signal issues. However, there was a five year gap here and the replacement program was no longer an option. He offered me to take a current production base home and try it on my floor layout and guess what? It worked perfectly with the new base. He then sold it to me at cost and my woes were over. What I remember is the early bases can be identified by the fact that the LED’s on top were rounded where the newer bases were flat and flush without the case. Check the LED’s and then move the setup back to your Christmas layout if this applies. Hope this helps.

Well it runs my other engine perfectly, and the lights ontop are flat 

Okay, just thought I'd pass along my experience. I forgot to mention that some of my locomotives were not affected like others and that I  had the same engine you're troubleshooting. Good luck!

NYC Z-MAN posted:

TheTrainMain posted:

NYC Z-MAN posted:

I would like to ask if the magic occurred when you went from your Christmas layout back to your basement layout? When Lionel first released TMCC there were issues with the early bases. They would work fine on most layouts as it did on mine. However, when I installed it on my Christmas floor layout it was flaky with crazy signal issues including having to change locomotive ID’s to single digits. It was really apparent when I moved to my new home where I set my Christmas layout on the floor built on a slab. My receptacle grounds were tested and all was good. So, I went to my dealer and he said the early bases were flaky and that Lionel had replaced early bases with new ones. I suspect the early bases had weak  signal issues. However, there was a five year gap here and the replacement program was no longer an option. He offered me to take a current production base home and try it on my floor layout and guess what? It worked perfectly with the new base. He then sold it to me at cost and my woes were over. What I remember is the early bases can be identified by the fact that the LED’s on top were rounded where the newer bases were flat and flush without the case. Check the LED’s and then move the setup back to your Christmas layout if this applies. Hope this helps.

Well it runs my other engine perfectly, and the lights ontop are flat 

Okay, just thought I'd pass along my experience. I forgot to mention that some of my locomotives were not affected like others and that I  had the same engine you're troubleshooting. Good luck!

Ah ok, Im starting to think maybe it was the fasttrack, I'll update here when I can for my board is being extended out so I cant run anything at the moment, it may have also been that I was powering it with a 1950s ZW with a rebuilt inside, it seems to run better with the 135 watt powerhouse and the powermaster, nonetheless if I notice anything else go wrong I'll keep you all updated 

I have the same engine and it stalls going through Ross Switches.  Will a wire from engine to tender solve this issue?

Doug

Hey so I'm having another issue with my TMCC in general, while holding down the whistle, the whistle plays multiple times instead of just staying held out, is there a way to fix this? or is this something I just have to live with?