Video added. Engine running. Need Help MTH Presidential Engine

Sunrise, this isn't going to be much help, but I just want to respond to let you know that your MTH presidential is not the only one with problems.

I bought one brand new from Western Depot last Spring (Mayflower edition - same engine, just shinier).  It arrived defective, loose rods, reversing unit cycled continually, useless.  Western Depot was great, got me a repair order number with MTH, paid label, so I sent it off.  MTH had it for 6 months, and the people there actually literally laughed at me when I called up to ask how it was coming.  They finally shipped it back to me still not working, plus missing the brass eagle and flags.

With Western Depot's intervention, Jeff Strank, head of service at MTH, has become involved and emailed me another prepaid label, and two days ago I sent it back to them again, after getting his assurance that it would go better this time.

MTH's "explanation" has been that they are waiting for parts.  In view of the fact that I can buy a new reversing unit on eBay for $20 and have it here tomorrow, I find this a little thin, but don't get me started.  Suffice to say that there seems to be an issue with these traditional-powered MTH Flyer Presidential-type locos.  

I am capable of some repair on these traditional mechanisms, they are after all fairly simple.  I did look at the this mechanism myself and decided it wasn't for me.  The Ives mechanism makes sense to me, this one does not.  But I would imagine there must be a lot of traditional train repair gurus out there for whom this would be a piece of cake.  If Western Depot hadn't gotten Mr. Strank's attention for me, that is the route I would have gone, and may still go if this doesn't work out.

Good luck.

My 4686 does the same. It sometimes runs a while, then just sits jerking back and forth with the lever waving wildly. Mines "new" but bought used so I'm on my own. If anyone knows the secret, let us know. I have it on the bench now waiting time to putter with it. I'd be pretty happy if it would just stay locked in forward.

Steve

Sorry to hear about the problems you guys are having with these engines.  Very disappointing especially since some people's reason for choosing traditional is the thought of better reliability over the contemporary versions due to simpler mechanics and no electronics.  I have two of these engines, one in the Rolls Royce blue for my President's Special set and the other one in a dark blue, for my Flying Colonel set.  They both are contemporary though.  It's interesting that although I typically prefer contemporary, this is one engine that I wanted in traditional as I love the bell ringer feature but could not find so I went with the PS2 versions.  I guess by dumb luck I avoided the problem that you are experiencing.  Does anybody know if this is a problem that is typical with all MTH's traditional A.F. locos or is this something that is a result of a bad batch?

hojack, sorry to hear about such poor customer service from MTH, it's got to be maddening to get your engine back after 6 months and it's still not working.  Why did they send it back if it was still not right?  If I was Mike Wolf or someone with the authority over there people would be losing there jobs. 

Best of luck, 

John.

Steve, your description matches exactly.  I thought it would just be a matter of adjusting the length or position of the long control rod to the reverse unit.  I even tried locking it forward by tying the rod down, but to no avail, it still did its flakey shifting.  On the Flyer unit, part of the reversing unit turns with the wheels, and on every rotation a pall catches on the rod and triggers the reverse.

John, Mr. Strank said that once Western Depot intervened again, the tech sent the loco back to me because it had taken so long, even though it had not been fixed.    After Mr. Strank emailed me, he had one of his techs contact me: the tech left me a message with a number to call back: when I called that number, I got the kid's voice saying he would be away until December 27, and there was no way to leave a message.  This was on January 11.  I emailed Mr. Strank back and suggested that maybe the tech's flywheel tach strip needed adjusting.  Mr. Strank's description of what the tech had done with the loco while it was there, led me to conclude that whoever was working on it basically had no idea what to do. The so-called "techs" at MTH do not exactly inspire confidence.

As I say, Mr. Strank has offered to try again, so I'm keeping an open mind to see the outcome, and if it is positive, I will report it here. 

Meanwhile, Steve's and Sunrise's engines are in the roundhouse: there has to be some good independent traditional-minded standard gauge repair people out here, for whom such a repair/modification would not be difficult.  

I own and operate a few A.F. original engines with the auto-reverse and I've worked on all of them after experiencing some of the same problems that you described. The long rod that engages the notch on the rotating drum causes the reverse unit to change direction when power is interupted. The rod is normally held UP by an electromagnet and does not engage the notch while under power. There should be a rod protruding from the end of the engine body if it is electric style or a short rod in the cab of a steam loco, pulling that rod out disables auto reverse function. If the auto reverse is turned on, it will only change direction if the engine is upright and has sufficient forward or reverse monentum to cause the reverse rod to drop and engage the pawl. Most of the problems that I've encountered have been caused by dirty contacts in the reverse unit or faulty wiring, but of course I'm dealing with old originals. The wire leading to the headlight is attached to one of the row of upper wire clips on the fiber board that forms the reverse unit. You can determine which clip by testing for hot to center pick-up and the electric style engines have 2 clips and the wire from each headlight is attached to the appropiate clip, same testing procedure depending on the direction of travel selected. I hope that I have been able to help.

I hope to soon post some pictures of our new standard gauge layout with some of these beauties running.

Eric Hofberg

TCA, LCCA    

 I got the engine running. A little oil, grease and playing around with the reversing mechanism and she's running A OK.  Im not use to AF traditional motors.  Does the engine sound right?  It seems a bit louder than the build a loco motors.  Perhaps its the acoustics of the shell?  Sorry about the in and out of focus of the video. My youngest daughter is learning how to use the video function on the camera she got for christmas.

Sunrise