steamer motor replacement

The king of can motor replacements is Frank Timko, of Timko repair depot. 

http://timkorepairdepot.com/

With that said, this loco was a product of a curious trend in manufacturing engineering years ago. The basic idea was "everything is over specified and over designed, so we can save money by loosening the tolerances." What a grandly stupid idea!

Your loco is basically a Berkshire with a different body. Many folks have been able to make them run right by putting the proper bearings and armature in them, but I never could get mine to run right.

Taylorra,

You are in WV it looks like.  If you want to salvage this locomotive, I would recommend sending it to George Galyo -- GGG here on the forum.  He terrific with repairs and he lives in the tidewater area of VA so you locomotive will not go on too long of a trip.  Another option is Frank Vacek (410-465-3782).  He lives in MD between DC and Baltimore.  Another gentleman.  Either one of them will get this locomotive running correctly.  These can be made to run very well, but there are tricks that the pros know that will make the difference. Good luck.

The weight of the loco is still marginal compared to the total train weight it can - and does - pull, when running correctly. This would not be your problem, but a can motor is always

a good idea. Any loco that is "too heavy to pull itself" certainly would never pull a 

train of any length, and it certainly wasn't made this way, as a design, at least. 

I have the die-cast engine/tender Lionel PW-based "Warhorse" 4-8-4, which, so far as I know, is the same mechanism as your loco. It has no problem running, and is, I am sure, as heavy as your RI. (I don't like the way it runs, though - it's too fast, rather than sluggish.)

The RI 4-8-4 was known for motor thrust bearing issues - seems one was left out at the

factory on part of the run. I'm not really terribly familiar with these things (I do the modern stuff, for the most part), but my Warhorse, with TMCC, has none of these issues,

and I know that some of the RI run well.

However, if you like the loco (and they're pretty attractive, so far as Traditional stuff goes),

determine that the gearbox is not the problem, have a can motor installed, put in ERR Cruise Commander (can't have cruise with an AC Pullmor) with Railsounds. It will run very

differently.

hello Taylorra.....

You could purchase a Williams version of the 736 chassis and maybe the chassis mounting holes will line up with the Lionel shell. if not then invest in postwar(1966 and before) 736 chassis as that will solve the problem for sure !!! I had one of those engine

and what a piece of junk it was but liked the boiler though. Lionel is the blame for bad

quality control on their part for making such a handsome engine which is ruined by poor QA. If you really like this engine then that what I would do and might as well keep it after fixing it. Oh I almost forgot, I loved the dual motor F-3's as I had good memories with the 2383's so I purchased NOS#18117 Blue and yellow Santa Fe F-3's

and this engine was new in the box but it has 2 that's right 2 bad armatures (bend upper shafts) and invested in 93 dollars in replacement armatures, postwar brushplates with metal bearings, postwar metal gears and 15 hours of hard labor. After all that work is done, the LTI era F-3's #18117 ran very well when 2 hours of run time to break in the gears, it ran just like the old 2383's.  I could never sell it to get my money back and the labor I put in to it so I might as well keep it but I do not wish to do that again.  Lionel is good in making junk and get away with it and passing the high cost of fixing the engines to make them a good runners.  In the postwar days up to 1966 all of the Lionel engines run well out of the box, go figure ? The bottom line is if you like the Rock Island Northern, invest the needed parts and fix it and be done with it. Just keep it.

Tiffany

The Other Guys did an article on tuning up this locomotive very early in their history, like maybe the 2nd issue.  It seemed to help the one in question and might help yours, too.  If you cannot find a copy of that issue, let me know:  I will dig through my fiels and photcopy it for you.

Sent my Rock Island steamer to Frank Timko.  Now have a DC Can motor. Had to replace AC commander with DC commander with cruise to work with can motor.  Now pulls my 7 car congressional aluminum cars up my steepest grade like there is nothing there.  Just a test. The congressional is pulled by a GG1.

Why not use the Cruise Commander?  Inquiring minds want to know.