Repairing 2026 steamer

Usually the insulation on the wire from the pickups crumbles after time and needs to be replaced. Changing it requires the frame to be spread with a frame spreading tool to get the fiber board out. The wheels need to be pulled a bit out on their axles to allow the frame to spread, and then pressed back in place after the repair.

The tool is available here.

Larry

Think outside the box.

Try slipping a piece of heat shrink tubing, or electrical spaghetti, or even a soda straw over the wire from the top. If you use a size that is large enough, you can slide it all the way down and not have to do anything more than just disconnecting the wire at the top first.

Try this first, if the wire isn’t broken, unsolder the wire from the E-unit, and slide heat shrink tubing down to where the short is.......no need to heat it up, just leave it sit there as an insulator.....what do you have to lose?....if it don’t work, and the wire breaks off the solder pad, you know what you have to do........Pat...

Looking at that rear pick up shoe that is worn all the way through, I would get a new collector plate with new shoes and do the wiring.  

This is a thread of mine a while back that discussed my foray into removing/replacing the collector:

https://ogrforum.com/...or-board-replacement

I've done it a few time since and don't fret it now. Creative tooling does help. Wheels do not need to be removed.

Here's my advice (especially because the wiper is well-worn)...

Take the loco apart as far as you can.  Maybe you can get a thin pair of nippers in the bottom of the chassis to remove the offending wire at its source.  Don't mess with the fiber plate or try spreading the frame.  Without the proper tools and techniques, you'll permanently hurt the appearance and performance.

Put a good, fresh pair of roller collectors ON THE TENDER, and add a harness between the loco and tender.  Heck, add a two-wire harness to improve the ground pickup as well. 

If the tender doesn't already have a whistle, add a little weight to make sure it makes good contact with the track.  And if the tender has a truck style that doesn't readily accommodate rollers, then just get one of the correct Postwar whistle tenders, or an MPC-era tender with the weird Symington-Wayne trucks, which are easy to install rollers on.  Problem solved, minimal skill required!

Something I have done, drill a hole in the collector, push new wire to top of engine, soder the wire to the collector, replace the lionel tag.  when you test the wire and it transmits electric, pull the old wire out. Done about 10 post war units that way

The pickup shoe is easily replaced WITHOUT removing the collector board by use of a screw driver as illustrated in the Lionel service materials - done this countless times.

As for fixing the insulation, I like @RoyBoy's suggestion of dropping on some heat shrink tubing which avoids the need to remove the collector plate.

 @Ted S' approach is more of a hack and workaround than a proper repair and I would avoid going that route.

Much more information can be had from the Lionel Service Documents kindly hosted by Olsens on the links below:

http://www.olsenstoy.com/searchcd31.htm?itm=627

http://www.olsenstoy.com/2026-48.htm

You better do a good job of her. I had the same loco, 1948 2026. My first train. Still have it. Don

@bmoran4 it might be a workaround.  But it doesn't require any special tools or skills (other than soldering.)  Zero chance of causing permanent damage, and it's 100% reversible.  I'll wager that the modified loco would have better electrical pickup than it did before the failure, so you could consider it a performance upgrade.

I've replaced these sliding shoes before.  New shoes will add a LOT of friction until the V-shaped groove wears in (as shown in the photo.)  Also, if the spring tension is too high, they will tend to lift the driving wheels off the rails, further reducing pulling power.  Not really a good design.  Fully worn shoes or even no shoes are as good as it gets operationally (assuming the tender is used as an alternate source of reliable power and ground.)  These issues were corrected in 1950 with the 2036, which got roller pickups like its O gauge brethren.

Regarding the shrink tubing- it might work.  But that depends on where the exposed part of the wire is that's causing the short.  In the proposed repair, there won't be anything holding the tubing in place.  If the shrink-tubing migrates (for example, if the loco is turned upside-down in the box), it could permit a recurrence of the short circuit.  So if the OP can't repair the broken wire, then he's better off removing it.  I'm more familiar with the wire coming loose from the collector, in which case using shrink tubing is not an option.

I like Doug's idea about soldering a new wire.  I don't know how difficult it is to replace the Lionel tag, or whether the metal tabs on the tag would survive being straightened and folded multiple times.  Drilling the hole is a permanent modification, but if it's hidden by the tag, who cares!

A lot of folks love Postwar, and Lionel's diesels were amazing feats of engineering.  But many of their lower-priced steam locos were very primitive, really just a clockwork chassis retrofitted with a magnetic field.  Shame on Lionel for not making the 6-wheel parallel plate chassis more user-serviceable.  IMO it should have been assembled like the Standard gauge bild-a-loco motor.  But it isn't.  So replacing wheels, gears, and the collector plate are all basically a service station-level repair.

I just re-wired the motor on a pre-war set I am restoring. I slid a piece of insulation from 20 ga stranded wire over the original conductor. Fits like a glove and is good as new. I joined the pieces with some small heat-shrink tube (probably overkill). Did the same on the wire from the field coil.

Lionel wire.seems to be steel, with a cloth covering,it can not compare to modern copper stranded wire with PVC insulation. That being said I am always impressed with lionel workmanship doing sodering, i am also impressed with Lionel being able to drill a hole for a screw on the support between two plates on a motor frame.  With Lionel wiring there is no slack between points of sodering, when I soder I need slack to do that.  Stranded copper wires does not crack and carries more current. I have never been able to spread the frame plates with the tool, you need to pull the wheels out a 1/16 on each side or so to do it. I cut collector plates with a dremel and install new plates by putting wooden shims below the collector plate and super glue the collector plate in.carefull to keep the same elevation/position as the origional . 

Thanks to all that replied. I am amazed at all the help to repair such a small piece. I removed the collector and will replace with a new one. Even got a admonition from scale rail to do it right. Bring on one of those Big Boys. Tstark