New Legacy 2-8-8-2 Lurches Slightly at Low Speed

Look for obvious issues first, ….traction tires half way hanging off, brake arm getting caught up in a tire, …also look at rods and valve linkage for any signs of binding or getting caught on something,…

Pat

Took the model off the track and put it on the table. From running I had my suspicions that it was the front-right articulated driver rod (I don't know the specific name of the rods I'm referring to), where when they slide back when the wheels are moving from the 6-o'clock to 9-o'clock, they seem to momentarily catch on the black metal bracket before the slide/scrape all the way back as the wheel rotates clockwise.

While this is a potential issue, I think I may have found a larger issue - on the back-right driver set (fixed to the boiler), the metal track that guides the piston rod (again, I'm not sure the technical terms I should use are, hopefully I'm making sense) are not screwed into the piston snugly. Because of this, the track can actually move vertically and horizontally (guessing about 1/8th inch horizontally, not sure vertically). Note in the picture below how the left-side of the sliding track is not flush with the piston.

The wheels seem to lock up randomly when gently rolling it with my hand on the track (unpowered) and I think it has to do with the piston track being misplaced/misaligned somehow but I can't say for sure. The screw that I need to tighten is inaccessible to me without taking off the wheels so I might just send in to Lionel to have them fix it so I don't void my warranty. But before I do that, is there anything else I should check as a likely culprit and try to fix myself?

Also does lionel fix detail parts? There are a couple small details that are missing/damaged/etc that I wasn't going to bother with, but if I am going to send it in I may as well see if they can fix those too. Thanks again.