Williams Alco Pa-1 issues

Definitely check that front motor and all the points where the wires are soldered to the motor. Make sure those wires are not touching the metal skin of the motor causing a short. Also feel the reverse unit and make sure no triacs are not overheating. You may have a short around the front motor.

  One of the screws holding the motors to the truck may be too tight Back out both screws then just make them snug tight.

 If this is a brand new Williams engine I would grease the gears. Sometimes I get new Williams engines with no grease in them. Good luck Chris.

Chris check your motor mounts. I just had to replace the rear motor on my williams GP38 engine that burn up and when i put the new motor in that motor turn tight too. I was lucky when williams sent me a new motor the motor mount was with it and i used it. It took care of the problem.  Also make sure you grease the gears well and make sure you don't have a broken wire on the pick up not getting power to that motor.  

I'd also test each motor by itself with a 12 volt DC power pack....or even a 9 volt battery. Remove the motors from the DCRU board and test to see if the run free of load. If both run free of load then you have a wire or DCRU issue. These locos are pretty bullet proof and easy to test. 

Williams motors don't get out of sync as they are electrically connected to the circuit board, unless your circuit board is bad.

Like others have mentioned check the wires to the motors and then check each motor by itself for electrical operation.

You may have a motor not mounted properly or loose. After assembly of the motors and wheelsets check that the motor can turn the wheelset by spinning the top side of the motor by hand.  Also check for lube on the gears that turn the wheels.

 

Lee Fritz

1 - A loose (rather than tight) truck/motor mounting screw can also bind things up - not uncommon on Wms locos, which are often assembled a bit casually. The truck spur gear drops away from the motor worm gear. Fixed one this summer with that same problem.

 

2 - Had another Wms diesel a few years ago (a friend's) with a variation on this, same

result: the big truck/motor mounting was fine - but the 2 small screws inside that actually

attach the motor to that truck mounting piece were both loose. So the worm and spur were trying to separate...binding in reverse only (don't you love it?). 

 

Loco #2 was a factory-fresh, out of the box new unit. #1 had had "body work", but no

mechanical fiddling.

Sounds like the trouble I had.  I found on my Alco the gear as slipping around the axle right where it is in the grease box.  You have to take it apart, tap the axle out, crimp the axle and slide the gear back on.  OR, take it o the next York meet in the Orange hall back against the wall, the great guy from Harrisburg who deals in Williams etc, and he will fix it VERY reasonable. I am sorry I forgot his name but he is a GREAT guy!!

Thanks for the quick responses everyone.  I looked over the motor mounts and couldn't find anything obviously wrong.  I started to think about the transformer I was using. After putting another Williams engine, a GP9, on the track I found that that engine was behaving the same way as the Alco. 

 

The problem ended up being the CW80 transformer I was using. After swapping out the transformer for a newer CW80 the engine runs great!  I read that some people have had problems with some generations of the CW80. I must have one of those troublesome transformers.  

 

Chris

Your welcome Chris!! Glad it was something simple.  

I have not used a CW-80 with any of my trains. So I would not have suspected the CW-80 as being the culprit in your case. The first production run of CW-80's were said to have problems, maybe that is what you have.

 

I use the MTH Z-1000 or the post war ZW or KW with my Williams engines and have no problems with them.

 

Lee Fritz