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This learning experince's lesson is: when you know something might be wrong, investigate now . . .

 

My LC+ GP7 was/is a great locomotive: perfect out of the box about two months ago, and a great runner.  Even though I prefer steam in most cases, I found myself running it a lot.  

 

About two weeks ago when I picked it up I heard a thump inside, as if something heavy, like a big bolt, were loose. I remember thinking "that's odd," then and later, but I didn't investigate.  It was running great.  Maybe it was just the way the trucks flopped around when I picked it up (Uh huh, yeah!).

 

Anyway, late yesterday it was dragging cleaning cars around the layout when it screeched, literally, to a halt, its rear truck's axles locked tight.

 

Nothing to lose taking it apart and so I did.  The "thumpy" thing was the flywheel from the rear motor which had come of, and, jammed deep within the gears of the truck was the set screw for the flywheel, looking none the worse for wear.  The same, however, cannot be said for the gears.  Mangled - not sure how bad.  

 

I'm going to try to file or clean off the mangled gear teeh and see if I can get it running again.  If not, fortunately the bad truck is the one without the control flywheel for the cruiser, so I can maybe just remove the motor and let it be a one-motor loco.  But if worse comes to worse, at least its not a pricey, hard to get Vision loco.  

 

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I can think of no other explanation other than it just worked loose, and gunrunnerjohn is right.  Anytime there is a thump in the night, or your GP7, you should look into it immediately.  It might be a loose nut (and flywheel), or a nut trying to break into your house in the middle of the night.  A screwdriver works for the former but frankly a shotgun is a lot better for the other . . . 

Originally Posted by Lee Willis:

I can think of no other explanation other than it just worked loose, and gunrunnerjohn is right.  Anytime there is a thump in the night, or your GP7, you should look into it immediately.  It might be a loose nut (and flywheel), or a nut trying to break into your house in the middle of the night.  A screwdriver works for the former but frankly a shotgun is a lot better for the other . . . 

 

It certainly would not be under warranty after I took it apart, but I would not think about returning it even so.  I fiddled with it some more and whatever is wrong, I can't get it to run.  

 

A new one costs on $250.  Just not worth the trouble to try anymore.  I may try to convert this to a dummy, but I can't even get the wheels on that rear truck to turn . . .  Oh well, not going to let it upset me.  

IT's FIXED - in a way.  I bought another, shown in the video below.  It looks and runs just like the first one.  It was good out of the box, but I did  open it up and used a little Loctite in that tiny the screw or whatever it is holding the flywheel on. I have no way of knowing if it would come loose like on the first, but five minutes of work and I never have to worry.

 

The original one?  It just was not worth fussing with anymore - I was certain I was just throwing good time after bad.  I may make it a dummy eventually - I figure another half hour with the stuck-axles truck (even with the motor removed) and I can find out why and free them to roll -- it would be a good one because it has smoke, etc.  

 

I continue to be increidibly impressed with the value Lionel and MTH are providing in some of their mid-price products.  This puppy cost around $250 with shipping, which seems like a bargain. 

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Sounds like somethings may be jammed behind one of the gears on the side of the truck, cocking it so it can't rotate. Or you may have a cracked gear tooth jamming things up.

 

You'd be amazed at the things I would find behind, or between the teeth of, side gears of diesel locos when I was still operating my shop.

 

Originally Posted by Lee Willis:

It certainly would not be under warranty after I took it apart, but I would not think about returning it even so.  I fiddled with it some more and whatever is wrong, I can't get it to run.  

 

A new one costs on $250.  Just not worth the trouble to try anymore.  I may try to convert this to a dummy, but I can't even get the wheels on that rear truck to turn . . .  Oh well, not going to let it upset me.  

Lee

I can't argue the time based hassle based decision on letting it go. I can't se Lionel saying your warranty is void because the loco went thump and you opened it. Dell makes you troubleshoot, supose it had been easy. They wouldnt want a loco back for a connector... Just a thought

LC+ is supposed to bring new people into the hobby and many of them may not be of Lee's apparent means.  From the perspective of the hobby, I would be concerned that a newcomer would be PO'd at such a thing and walk away.  (I know a colleague at the office was pretty annoyed after a new PE set failed a few days after purchase during Christmas week -- it turned him off to Lionel.)  I think it speaks poorly for Lionel quality control that this thing failed two months after purchase.  I understand that the noise should have caused you to investigate, but at the same time parts shouldn't fall off two month old locomotives.  I would return it for repair just to drive home the cost on Lionel.  Not in a vindictive way, but to make the firm pay the costs of shoddy quality and in this manner provide the financial incentives for improvement. 

I'm really curious when Lionel started using set screws to keep flywheels on, instead of press fitting as they have in the past??

 

Personally, I'm not a big fan of set screws on round shafts for anything. To me this sounds like another cost saving measure, like Delrin drive gears on the Alaska starter set Geeps, that's going to turn around an bite Lionel in the wallet if it's not dealt with. My $0.02.

 

 

 

 

 

Last edited by Len2

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