One of the trucks on our new Lionel CR SD60M suddenly locked up today. I've seen this happen a few times over the years, and usually send the engine back to the dealer or Lionel, but I'm honestly sick of shipping these things. I also hate opening up modern day Lionel engines, though I've certainly done it. Any suggestions as to what may be wrong and how to fix it without shipping the darn thing back? Thanks!
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Any chance you could return it for an exchange? I wouldn't touch a locomotive under warranty unless Lionel cleared me to do it.
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Check for a piece of ballast in the gears, I had that happen to my Atlas GP9. A single grain of ballast got stuck in the gearing.
Bob hit it. I had a piece of ballast in my engine truck which I found after I bought a new truck.
Wasn't ballast..I have had that happen rarely and it was the first thing I looked for. I finally turned one of the wheels by hand and got it unlocked. Lubed it up really well, and now it's running fine. Will keep an eye on it. I think Ray's suggestion is probably on target.
Thanks to all who posted.
Neal - you and a group of people in our club are seeing the same thing on the SD60M locomotives. The GP40's were not affected due to some packaging changes. Not sure about the SD45s... If the boxes are drop in such a way that a load is applied to the couplers or wheels ... it jams the new 90 degree Lionel Drive wheels inside their trucks. the truck side frames are not supported enough in the packaging to avoid this.
The fix was the same for us. find the wheel/ gear that is jammed and unlock it.
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