track inspection cars

bought one at the lionel red carpet event and it keeps losing power, can't get it to run more than a couple of feet. Booooo.

I have the Lionel TMCC track inspection car, and I've also installed TMCC into that orange truck you have.  The little Lionel car got working taillights and a strobe, just to make it somewhat unique.

Could you elaborate on the new lighting and strobe John, my son picked up the 2nd one from the top- the orange straight truck- and we have planty of room in there for....something.

{btw- the oem lighting sucks...sorry lionel, but it does}

I have the blue truck and it runs great. 

You forgot one.

I bought one for my son, only it doesn't do FasTrack remote uncouplers.  It has a shoe that is so small that once on an uncoupler, it no longer gets power.  I was rather unhappy about that.  Then I found an article in some train magazine about modding it.  The writer added a roller and TMCC to it.  I didn't need the TMCC, so I ordered the roller and did that mod.  Well, it failed even more as now the roller drops off of the center rail on O36.  The author said his tightest curve was O72 when talking about his layout, but failed to mention that would make a difference on how it works on curves.  I still have it in it's box somewhere.  Maybe some day I'll try to get it running.

For the truck, I used LED's for the lighting, it actually doesn't have a strobe.  The strobe and tail lights are on the Lionel Early Era Inspection Car.  It's a PITA to work in there, there is no room!

The Truck should be simple to wire, I used the ERR Mini Commander with the motor option for mine.  If you buy the ERR MiniCommander 2 with the smoke option, you can use that to control a strobe and wire headlights and tail lights right from the board.  I wired the regular tail lights and headlights on the incandescent headlight output, and then I wired some backup lights on the reverse LED output.

Also, I suggest you add as much weight as you can, makes a huge difference in how it performs.  I put about 10oz of wheel weights in mine, really makes it run much smoother.

I have the early era one - the last of the picture posted.  Three in fact.  Nice, scale model of a '38 Buick, I think, heavy and well made, but too much electornics in such a small package.  Mine overheated - they ran very hot and eventually two died - one after but a few minutes, the other after about a dozen hours of running.  I converted those two to 'Streets cars and have the other around somewhere but never run it: I imagine it would overheat and burn out, too, if I ran it much.

I don't run mine much.  I take it to shows and park it on a siding, once in a while I'll run it around the loop for the kids, then park it again.  The board in there is so small, I'm sure a lot of running would overheat it.

I have the first five units pictured. The first (red station wagon) and fifth (blue station wagon) are reissues of the Postwar #68 executive inspection car, with an AC motor and two position mechanical e-unit.

I think the second (orange truck), third (blue pickup) and fourth (white station wagon)cars have a less durable mechanisms. I believe this is the explosion diagram for the blue pickup.  I haven't had mine out of storage in a long time because I don't care for their construction.

I've  got the 4th one down the NYC but was disappointed with it as it is more G scale 1:24, so has been sitting under the layout ever since.

James

are you sure?  when i get stuck behind one of those soccer-mom beastmobiles i sometimes feel my normal convertible is more of an O27 size.

The reissue of the postwar 68 executive inspection car was also made in a hot rod paint scheme, and decorated for Pennsylvania Railroad.

That's the same chassis for our orange truck, with the excecption that we have a single bulb each end for lighting instead of the two bulbs each end shown.
I was thinking about a reverse board in the van body and tap the lights off of that- better lighting and F/N/R too.

"The board"...you mean the ERR or TMCC board? Ours is the simple rectifier only version- forward only.

On the orange straight truck you could open up the cab back windows...maybe even the rest of them too since they're just painted on over a solid body.

Sinclair:

I wrote the article for OGR (Run 236 June/July 2009) regarding the addition of pickup rollers and TMMC to my Lionel Inspection car. See photo below that shows a small piece of plastic that I glued under the pickup roller assembly spring which serves to limit the up and down movement of the roller enough to likely solve your problem. I found the fix after the article was published when the roller was getting stuck in my switch tracks. I hope this helps and you can get the little car running! Stan

I was talking about the Early Era Inspection Car, it's really tiny and the board is miniscule that drives it.

The inspection van was forward-only when I got it, but now it has TMCC.  Actually, I have quite a fleet of little TMCC operated vehicles that I have converted from conventional operation.