Slow Dragging Motor

check for any binding of wheels and gears; make sure it is lubricated and that includes the motor, the worm gear and the shaft casing, and the axles, and then run it in. Probably needs to be broken in.

This loco has the same running gear as the 777 Commodore Vanderbilt Hudson. Mine ran at less than full speed also. The rod castings were too thick where they met the eccentric crank, but other than that, there were no mechanical malfunctions. Fixing the rods did nothing to improve top speed.

My thinking is that the motor is designed for 20 volts, and the gear ratio in the transmission is too low (high numerically) for the motor. When I replaced the old open frame motor with a can motor, the old girl really came to life.

That makes alot of sense Roy. I have heard that repacing the "Pullmor") makes a big difference in performance. Did you install the can motor yourself or did you have someone else do it?

My 785 Hudson had three drive train problems that once repaired the engine runs like a rocket. You may or may not have these problems but here were mine: First, the end of the horizonal worm shaft furthest from the motor was sticking out of the bearing and rubbing against the valve hanger. I ground the end down a bit and solved that issue. On the other end of the shaft there is a brass colored piece with two pins that engage a rubber coupling block and faces a similar part on the end of the armature shaft. I noticed brass filings on the engine frame beneath this coupling. The pins on both pieces were too long and were rubbing against the face of the opposing piece. I had to file the ends of the pins down on both parts until they no longer touched the other brass coupling piece. Third, the armature shaft itself was bent. I clamped it in my bench vise and kept my fingers crossed that this would straighten the shaft. I did straighten it after several attempts and turns of the shaft.
Since my work, I have not been able to give it more than 12 - 13 volts without fear of flying off a curve.

First of all, the tender is not the problem. Think about it. Secondly, replace that tender with a PT from eBay!
No NYC loco ever had a Vanderbilt tender, which, of course, is really bizarre.

Anyway - I've got the loco. Mine was sluggish at first, but gets better with time. Lighted passenger cars don't
help, as the Pullmor is a power sucker. I would love to see it with a Pittman can motor. Unless there is binding,
I think that it will become a good runner. It's pretty smooth and consistent for a dinosaur.

Nice loco, though (PT tender looks great). Just run it, it'll probably get better. A friend of mine bought one
and lubed it and let it run for 2 hours. Improvement. It really isn't a very powerful model, though, so
limit it to moderate-sized trains. (All I can do, anyway.)

I left the traction-tired middle driver in the box and went with the plain ones (the Scullin discs look
fantastic). It does a very prototypical spin when starting a train.

quote:

That makes alot of sense Roy. I have heard that repacing the "Pullmor") makes a big difference in performance. Did you install the can motor yourself or did you have someone else do it?

I sent just the pullmor motor to Frank Timko. He made a motor mount for a can motor and put the proper end on the shaft for the coupling. It was a simple job to physically install the motor in the loco.

Then I installed a Cruise Commander from Electric Railroad company. Since I changed from a universal motor to a DC-only motor, the control system had to be changed also. It now runs at a crawl for yard speeds, like a bullet on the mainline, and will hold any intermediate speed i choose.

If you just want to run in conventional mode, a reverse unit from Williams will work fine.

Guess it's time for a little "exploratory surgery". To my knowledge, this engine is from the same Lionel era as the infamous 6-18001, 4-8-4, that had severe drive problems.
Thanks "All" for the information and suggestions.

What I found on mine was that the worm gear was too tight against the spur gear. I took the cover off the gearbox and but thin brass shims under the bearing blocks to raise the worm up slightly. You should be able to move the worm gear shaft just slightly. The engine went from half speed at full power with no passenger cars to full speed pulling 6 passenger cars.

I guess that my friend and I are just lucky; both his and mine certainly
don't run like can-motor units, but they're OK, and we've not experienced
any of the shaft/bearing/armature problems mentioned.

That conversion sounds tempting, though.

The sub-scale 4-8-4 with the problems is well documented (made before this loco?),
but not all of them were flawed, and the same drive train is found on the
Warhorse N&W "J", I think, and they have not had the issues that the Rock
Island 4-8-4 did.

The repro 763 and the infamous Rock Island 4-8-4 are several years apart. The semi-scale Northerns had the Mighty Sound of Steam while the 763 repro had an early version of TMCC. That is not to say there might not be similar problems, but there's no relationship as such. I have one of the old Northerns (Lackawanna version); it required shimming the motor mounts, shimming the wheels for excess axle end play, and a couple of other things before it ran decently. I'm in the process of converting it to TMCC using an old AC kit from Digital Dynamics.

Picking up an old thread that is relevant to an issue I am having, I have a Lionel 4-8-4 Delaware Lackawanna & Western 6-18003 that runs balky, needs full throttle to move in reverse and 3/4 to get going in forward.  Once moving, runs fairly well but still not entirely smooth, almost like engine is laboring.  Smoke output is terrific and it is a very nice looking unit.  I have lubricated all points specified in manual with oil, taken apart the shell, etc.  I did not see any direction to grease anything.  The drive mechanism sounds like it is problematic to begin with based on comments above.  Is there a fix?