hello guys and gals........
I have the lionel #18117 blue and yellow Santa Fe F-3 of 1993 era and I purchased it mint in the box and the day I got it, it was defective but never been run and needed a pair of armatures( the upper shafts ) was bend !!!! and came with black plastic gears, white nylon worm gear. The MPC style brush plate didn't have a metal bearing in it so I changed over to metal gears like the postwar 2383's and postwar brush plates (with metal bearing). After I ran it for 2 hours of breaking in time, it ran really well like the original 2383's did. The magnet-traction of that engine is weak too. The painted bodies is sloppy but better than the postwar painted bodies. It took me about 15 hours of labor to do this kind of work as the bronze pinion gears was too thick which require to remove about .024 inches to fit right and not rub against the back flanged geared wheel and the back of the geared wheel, it had burrs on it which needed to be filed smooth. Lionel should have left it alone and not mess it up by cheapen it, they did a good job messing it up !!!! I had good memories of the 2383 set #12730 I had so I know what its like. I just purchased the Williams F-3's and this is a much better engine compared to the Lionel F-3's. The Williams version already come with metal gears, Can motors with metal shaft bearings, better painted bodies and heavier thicker die cast frame even the "B" unit is die cast frame too and you can buy motor kit to make it powered as well. The Williams F-3's runs a lot better too. I didn't have to do this kind of work on the Williams F-3's just put in fresh grease and oil and put on track then off you go. In this case, Lionel is a sore loser. The parts needed to up-grade the newer Lionel F-3's to 2383 specs is not cheap (costing me total of 148 dollars) which I will NEVER do that again. I spend lot of time fixing up my Lionel 18117 F-3's so I might as well keep it as it now runs well like the postwar ones do but it will never out pull the Williams F-3's that's for sure.
Tiffany
