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Hi Everyone,

I have a GP-20 that seems to have stripped gears. It makes sound but doesn’t move and the wheels spin freely by hand. 

I’d like to convert it to a dummy and would like to know the easiest way to make this conversion. Not too familiar with these - can I just cut some of these wires to kill power to the motor? Not sure how to remove the motor/truck or if that’s even necessary  

 Thanks for any advice you can offer. 

Kevin

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CoastsideKevin posted:

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Kevin,

Two things. The wheels are missing the traction tires. I bet the unit wouldn’t run well just with those missing.

If you’re intent on having a dummy, I don’t know how well the wheels with freely roll. In this picture remove the two philips screws and lift off that brush cover. Then lift out the motor armature. You can then look down at the gear that might be stripped. If you leave these parts out, you’ve got a dummy. I have an MPC dummy chassis if you’d want to trade.

Sam Jumper posted:
CoastsideKevin posted:

2D2D79B6-0A8A-4A14-8094-36D533F1A8E8

Kevin,

Two things. The wheels are missing the traction tires. I bet the unit wouldn’t run well just with those missing.

If you’re intent on having a dummy, I don’t know how well the wheels with freely roll. In this picture remove the two philips screws and lift off that brush cover. Then lift out the motor armature. You can then look down at the gear that might be stripped. If you leave these parts out, you’ve got a dummy. I have an MPC dummy chassis if you’d want to trade.

I have been using this unit as a donor so the traction tires are now on my other GP-20. I may take you up on the swap but will first try as you suggest and take the motor apart to try to dummify it. 

Thanks for your help!

Chuck Sartor posted:

All that need to be done is the armature removed. Like other guys have stated, your engine can be repaired.

Great, thanks. I will remove armature for now but with the intention of getting it running again. It’s funny, I didn’t see any obviously stripped gears when I took the armature out. I’ll post some pics..

Kevin, the two pictures you provided are somewhat low resolution, so it's difficult to actually see the culprit. Typically I would have guessed that one (or more) of the plastic gears has a crack in/on it and is spinning freely on its shaft. This is super-easy to check; just stick your finger on the broken brown gear (the one that is almost black with old grease and has angled teeth on it) and then try to roll the truck across your table top while keeping the brown gear from moving.

If it rolls easy, you should be able to see which gear (or gears) is (are) the offender(s).

If it doesn't roll easily and attempts to shred the flesh from your fingertip, then, a) quickly stop pushing, and b) take a closer look at that brown gear, specifically on the left edge of the gear teeth. I tried to blow your pic up to get a better look, but it's not a hi-res picture. That said, it APPEARS that the left edge of the gear (as viewed in your picture) is a wee bit shredded. If that is indeed the case then stick your eyeball on things and see if the worm on the armature shaft was not hitting the brown gear fully in the center - either because the brown worm gear was mounted poorly from the factory, or because it moved over time. Try to slide the brown gear left or right on the shaft. If it can be moved with just your finger, there's a slight possibility to glue things back together using the existing parts and very little work on your part. But first tell me if what I just described is the case. 

Replacing the brown worm gear with a new one is not a simple task, but certainly can be done. But let's see what problems you find first, then you can decide how much you are willing to attempt yourself or if you would even want to spend some bucks to have someone else fix it.

George

GeoPeg posted:

Kevin, the two pictures you provided are somewhat low resolution, so it's difficult to actually see the culprit. Typically I would have guessed that one (or more) of the plastic gears has a crack in/on it and is spinning freely on its shaft. This is super-easy to check; just stick your finger on the broken brown gear (the one that is almost black with old grease and has angled teeth on it) and then try to roll the truck across your table top while keeping the brown gear from moving.

If it rolls easy, you should be able to see which gear (or gears) is (are) the offender(s).

If it doesn't roll easily and attempts to shred the flesh from your fingertip, then, a) quickly stop pushing, and b) take a closer look at that brown gear, specifically on the left edge of the gear teeth. I tried to blow your pic up to get a better look, but it's not a hi-res picture. That said, it APPEARS that the left edge of the gear (as viewed in your picture) is a wee bit shredded. If that is indeed the case then stick your eyeball on things and see if the worm on the armature shaft was not hitting the brown gear fully in the center - either because the brown worm gear was mounted poorly from the factory, or because it moved over time. Try to slide the brown gear left or right on the shaft. If it can be moved with just your finger, there's a slight possibility to glue things back together using the existing parts and very little work on your part. But first tell me if what I just described is the case. 

Yes, I didn't see it at first but now that you mention it, when I blow up the picture I see that the left edge looks like it is stripped. Hadn't noticed that before. Thanks!

Replacing the brown worm gear with a new one is not a simple task, but certainly can be done. But let's see what problems you find first, then you can decide how much you are willing to attempt yourself or if you would even want to spend some bucks to have someone else fix it. 

I'll give it a look when I get home from work. I am most likely not going to put much effort into fixing it, since it didn't pull as well many of my other locos and I do need a dummy GP. What would be perfect is if I could find a blue and gold Santa Fe shell to put on the frame so it would match my other GPs. Thanks for your help!

 

Chuck Sartor posted:

Either one of the plastic gears are stripped and spinning on the axle gear shaft. probably the one the armature drives. Metal replacements are available. No need to cut any wires, just turn the e unit lever off. Then you can still keep the light(s).

Excellent, a simple solution I would not have thought of: turn off the e unit! Thank you, Chuck.

luvindemtrains posted:

This comes from the Cross Country Set. This was the set that got me "into" Lionel and O scale. The set belonged to my childhood friend and I ended up purchasing one a saw on ebay as an adult. I still have it. I know this has nothing to do with the thread but I just got a little excited when I saw the diesel engine.

Dave

That's cool, Dave. Thanks for sharing. I also got this engine and matching caboose as a kid, probably in the early 1980s, so have had it a long time. Because the gears stripped shortly after we bought it, it has been in storage and is in nearly perfect cosmetic shape. Just ordered new traction tires, headlight bulb, and will get her going as a dummy for now but eventually will put her back into service. 

Ok, project update. 

I slid the gear over on the axle so it lined up with the drive shaft coming out of the bottom of the motor, slapped on some new tires, put in a new light, and ended up with this:

 

Not bad, right? Well, that was until I hooked up a few cars and ended up with this:

Clearly something still wrong with the gears, so I went ahead with my conversion and it looked like this:

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But I didn’t like the bright light in the cab so took out the bulb and ended up with this:

Not perfect but prefer to see two engines pulling a consist of this length. 

Thanks to everyone for your help and input. It was a good learning experience. If anyone knows of a good dummy unit that matches the Lionchief Plus Santa Fe GP-38, please let me know. 

Kevin

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Diverging Clear posted:

I think you have done good work to this point. I was wondering if you were going to paint what I call the "elephant ear" behind the cab, like your other unit, or just leave it as is? If you don't choose to do so, it still looks good! I also enjoyed the video's, thanks for posting!

Rusty

Thanks Rusty. I decided not to attempt the Santa Fe Swoosh. I would have to free hand it, and I don’t trust my artistic ability at that level. I did add more decals to the front of the cab so feel like it is close enough now. 

Sure is hard to find affordable, matching GP or SD powered and dummy units that pull reasonably well.

Kevin, I understand, if I lived closer we'd masked that "Swoosh" off behind the cab and it would have turned out good I'm sure. You could even mask it off later and brush paint it, might look alright.

You could even say it went in for repairs regarding the main generator and that's how it came out of the shop! It's all good and it's your railroad, so anything is possible!

Rusty

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