Lionel 8004 engine progressively runs slower

16 volts and 4.9 amps are too high. Maybe the brushes and brush springs need to be replaced. Oil the axles on the passenger cars to reduce friction. Five Williams lighted passenger cars may be too heavy for that locomotive

4.9 amps x 16 volts = 78 watts, which is sort of getting up there. You say you are using a ZW transformer which is rated at 275 watts. I'm curious as to what else is feeding from that transformer. Could it be that you have the ZW loaded enough that it  is heating up and causing voltage drop?

Thanks for your thoughts.  The brushes were (from my mind's eye) about 1/4" long and were not oily.  The springs hold the brushes tightly to the armature and there was no drag of the brushes in the holder.  I can't think of a way that the resistance of the brushes would change over 30 minutes time, but I'm open to an explanation if I'm missing something.

My guess is the motor armature is getting hot pulling those cars and the brush springs are loosing their tension. Does it slow down pulling a six car freight?

@tncentrr posted:

4.9 amps x 16 volts = 78 watts, which is sort of getting up there. You say you are using a ZW transformer which is rated at 275 watts. I'm curious as to what else is feeding from that transformer. Could it be that you have the ZW loaded enough that it  is heating up and causing voltage drop?

The volt and amp figures I quoted were before adding track powered accessories other than the lamps of 4 switches. (This is a Christmas time only setup)  The ZW was not powering anything else at the time.

The lighted passenger cars, are they all 2 per car incandescent bulbs?.....if so, you can’t blame all the amp draw on the locomotive......it’d be nice to know some numbers running light ( no cars ) on average 10-15 minutes, and then maybe an equal to the weight of the passenger cars freight train, with no lighted caboose, to get the actual amp draws the motor is consuming,.....also  another meter just to verify your train-o-meter isn’t a pathological liar so to speak....

Pat

@Chuck Sartor posted:

My guess is the motor armature is getting hot pulling those cars and the brush springs are loosing their tension. Does it slow down pulling a six car freight?

I'll have to try that tomorrow.  It certainly won't take 16 or 17 volts to run it without lighted cars though.  The slowing down problem has been going on for years, so if the springs were going to be annealed by the amount of heat, it would have already occurred.  The springs were plenty tight when I took the brush plate off to clean the armature.  What a pain it is to get the brushes back in this thing.  The springs have a little hook at the end and if you push them out of their socket and hold the hooks with a paper clip you can put the brushes back in without them jumping across the room.  Let the paper clip slip though and you're hunting brushes.

@harmonyards posted:

The lighted passenger cars, are they all 2 per car incandescent bulbs?.....if so, you can’t blame all the amp draw on the locomotive......it’d be nice to now some numbers running light ( no cars ) on average 10-15 minutes, and then maybe an equal to the weight of the passenger cars freight train, with no lighted caboose, to get the actual amp draws the motor is consuming,.....also  another meter just to verify your train-o-meter isn’t a pathological liar so to speak....

Pat

I'll try it with unlighted freight cars tomorrow.  The Williams passenger cars each have two bulbs per car.  If this were DC amps I could just put the multimeter in the circuit and measure the amps.  I tried an old analog AC amprobe I have and got a reading between 3 and 4 amps as best as I can tell.  The meter is not really designed for such low amp readings.

@R Lamparter posted:

I'll try it with unlighted freight cars tomorrow.  The Williams passenger cars each have two bulbs per car.  If this were DC amps I could just put the multimeter in the circuit and measure the amps.  I tried an old analog AC amprobe I have and got a reading between 3 and 4 amps as best as I can tell.  The meter is not really designed for such low amp readings.

Anything that can back up the claim of the first meter,.....our z4000’s are known pathological liars, and are often disproven with a fluke meter .......anywhere from 1/2 amp to  3/4’s amp difference....quite a vague value when you’re looking for a needle in a haystack of needles ...

Pat

The Tri-Flow is not good on the wheel axles - the PTFE (Teflon) will insulate the axle and cause a loss of Common (outside rail). This only added to the situation. I don't think it is the cause - back to your regularly scheduled programming

Do you think that perhaps the gear wheel is slipping on the axle? 8004-66

Is the idler gear cracked?

Is the gear on the motor shaft slipping?

Service diagram - General Type, 4-4-0 w/, 2 Position E-Unit - 1980 (lionelsupport.com)

I think the engine R L is talking about is a 4-6-2. Regret selling mine on the bay with a custom CN tender. JohnA

Try getting the armature rebuilt. It could be  going bad after it warms up.

Here is the service literature for the 6-18004 locomotive.

Larry

@Moonman posted:

The Tri-Flow is not good on the wheel axles - the PTFE (Teflon) will insulate the axle and cause a loss of Common (outside rail). This only added to the situation. I don't think it is the cause - back to your regularly scheduled programming

Do you think that perhaps the gear wheel is slipping on the axle? 8004-66

Is the idler gear cracked?

Is the gear on the motor shaft slipping?

Service diagram - General Type, 4-4-0 w/, 2 Position E-Unit - 1980 (lionelsupport.com)

I doubt the gears are slipping on their shafts.  I think I'd hear the motor spinning faster if that were the case, and the whole thing sounds like it's slowing down.  I went and looked for cracks.  I didn't see anything obvious in the two idler gears.

@TrainLarry posted:

Try getting the armature rebuilt. It could be  going bad after it warms up.

Here is the service literature for the 6-18004 locomotive.

Larry

Y'know.  You might be on to something there.  I looked at that web page and he gives the symptoms of a faulty armature as:

Here are some signs that your motor may need to see the doctor for an armature rewind:

The motor runs very hot and slows down after a few minutes of operation!

• The armature wires will look dark in color relative to the other windings on the armature.  A sure sign that the armature has been damaged.
• The field winding is getting very hot too.  This means that the current flowing through the series circuit made by the field and the armature has a very low resistance.  This is another sign that the armature has a problem.  Note: rarely does the field winding go bad.  When it does, you will know it!

It's something I was wondering about on my own.  This is an engine I've had for many years but haven't run for about 10 years.  My recollection is that when I bought it, it had no difficulty pulling the 5 Williams cars, but over time when it ran for perhaps an hour it would begin to slow down and on at least one occasion when I was dozing on the couch, it stopped completely.  Although I don't have one, I'm aware that for small electronics there's something called the Blue Ring Tester which tests transformers used on circuit boards.  Is there any way of testing the armature coils to see if there's a short somewhere?  An ohmmeter probably wouldn't do it because these normally have such low ohm readings anyway.  Is there a ring tester or some other method of testing coils on toy trains?

I would just replace the armature then. You will have to pull the rear drive wheel to take out the armature. They are common and readily available.

Despite your lube job, it could still be binding - I would eliminate that first before I started spending money on parts and pulling wheels.

Since your drive train is just made up of spur gears, you should have no problem hand pushing the engine down the track with the power off (no pass cars, please), and the engine cold. Note the resistance to your pushing. Run it for 30 minutes or until it slows down, then immediately perform the same experiment and note if the resistance is the same or much higher. If it's a binding issue, you shouldn't have any trouble feeling an increase in resistance.

If that comes up empty-handed, pull the shell off, remove the brush plate and  slowly spin the armature around and look at all three windings for discoloration - typically (but not always) one of them will darken if it is shorted. If one is darker, replace the armature. If nothing is noted, move on to the next test.

Set your ohmmeter to the lowest ohms range it has, then:

1) assuming it has a rotary switch to select the various ranges, work that switch back and forth rapidly to temporarily clean the contacts - a critical step if you are measuring very low resistances - then clean the the probe plugs that plug into the meter with alcohol or a contact cleaner, and work them back and forth or in and out of the jacks a couple of times - same reason.

2) Clean the probe ends, then short the probes together (tightly held) and zero out the meter (analog) or simply note the reading (digital meter). With any luck you should be reading anywhere from 0.0 to 3.0 ohm range with the probes shorted. Note the number that repeats most often when doing this, that is your new "zero" value.

3) Now push the probe ends onto two of the three commutator plates on top of the armature - push them solidly onto the outer or inner portion of the commutator rings (don't want to leave a small hole in the soft copper commutator, right in the brush path!). Note the reading - it should be approximately 1 ohm higher than your new "zero" value reading you observed in the last step. Rotate it and try the next two, then the last two. They should all be very nearly the same. If you see one reading that differs from the others by more than 0.1  ohms, I would be suspicious.

This method does NOT guarantee that you will find a shorted armature, but if you do see a significant difference that's a very good tell tale. Also, since you indicated that it always seems to start ok when cold, then slow when hot, I would try to get everything set up and ready to do a "hot" test to stand a better chance of catching the culprit.

Best o' luck!

An armature tester is called a growler, and is the ONLY sure way of testing an armature for shorts. One or two shorted windings will NOT show up on an ohmmeter.

Larry

If wheel pulling isn’t your thing, there is another alternative......these share the same body casting as postwar 2055, 2065, 665, etc......plenty of those whole chassis assemblies on the bay, .....buy a known good one from a reputable seller, and do a 4 screw fix, ....take out the ailing chassis, slide in a better one,.....more than one way to skin a cat,....😉

Pat

@R Lamparter, first of all, I mostly agree with @TrainLarry and his comment above about a growler. That is a device that I would guess very few people have in their tool bag (including me), and that's why I didn't mention it. He's absolutely correct, if you test your armature on a growler, it will tell you for certain if you have any shorted windings.

But there is also a remote, long shot that a simple ohmmeter could tell you if you have a dead short, or one that develops with heat. Keep in mind, I said "remote" and "long shot", because an ohmmeter will tell you if you have a dead short in the windings only if the short occurs in just the right spot. So what are the odds? I would say somewhere between slim and way less than slim! But if you have a meter, it only takes a couple of minutes to take that long shot - what have you got to lose?

All that said, the real question here is do you want to pull (and remount) a wheel on your steamer? If your answer is yes, then maybe the easiest thing to do is just buy a used armature from a dealer you can trust and put it in. If the answer is no, then Pat's (@harmonyards)  suggestion to just slip a good, used chassis under your shell is an excellent suggestion. I would give that one some serious thought - it all depends on how you like to spend your time & gold doubloons, running trains or fixing them

P.S., checking for binding the way I described above would absolutely be my first test - it's cheap (zero expense) and pretty quick, and if it comes up negative, then you have eliminated a whole slew of troubleshooting tips that will be thrown at you!!!

You could also sent it to Pat and do a Pittman upgrade, like I did on my 6-18011

@GeoPeg posted:

@R Lamparter, first of all, I mostly agree with @TrainLarry and his comment above about a growler. That is a device that I would guess very few people have in their tool bag (including me), and that's why I didn't mention it. He's absolutely correct, if you test your armature on a growler, it will tell you for certain if you have any shorted windings.

But there is also a remote, long shot that a simple ohmmeter could tell you if you have a dead short, or one that develops with heat. Keep in mind, I said "remote" and "long shot", because an ohmmeter will tell you if you have a dead short in the windings only if the short occurs in just the right spot. So what are the odds? I would say somewhere between slim and way less than slim! But if you have a meter, it only takes a couple of minutes to take that long shot - what have you got to lose?

All that said, the real question here is do you want to pull (and remount) a wheel on your steamer? If your answer is yes, then maybe the easiest thing to do is just buy a used armature from a dealer you can trust and put it in. If the answer is no, then Pat's (@harmonyards)  suggestion to just slip a good, used chassis under your shell is an excellent suggestion. I would give that one some serious thought - it all depends on how you like to spend your time & gold doubloons, running trains or fixing them

And that’s the brass tax George, ....there’s some of us that would rip it apart and fix it, then there’s those that just want to run it,...different strokes for different folks, no harm no foul either way,......my favorite part of the thread, is my man said he dozes off watching them go around,.....I’ve been known to do that, ....so I can relate!...

Pat

I found the problem and fixed it.  I don't know whether to be embarrassed or elated.  It was a lockon that wasn't making good contact.  Darned near burned my hand when I touched the track where the lockon was located.

Out of curiosity, I did the experiment suggested last night, to run the train with unlighted freight cars.  I did this with four heavy 50's vintage operating cars and ran the engine for almost a half hour.  The engine got pretty warm, as usual, but didn't slow down.  Near the end of the time I took the freight cars off and put the 5 Williams lighted passenger cars on the train instead and it ran fine.  When running with the freight cars it was using about 14.4 V and pulling about 4.4 A.  With the lighted passenger cars I needed to up the voltage to 15.5 V and it pulled around 5.5 A.  Measurements were from the Trainometer my son designed and built for me about 10 years ago.  Thanks for all of your advice.  I even talked to the Motor Doctor this morning before I found the real cause.  I'm glad to know he's around if I ever do need that kind of service.  Even though I've fixed the problem I'm going to respond to a couple of individual messages to educate myself since some of the suggestions may be useful in the future.  Thanks again to all.

I had a carpet layout about 5 years ago, and ran into the same thing, except I saw one of the wire contacts glowing BRIGHT red/yellow. I'm still amazed I didn't catch the carpet on fire or at least burn it a bit! Glad you found it!

George

@TrainLarry posted:

An armature tester is called a growler, and is the ONLY sure way of testing an armature for shorts. One or two shorted windings will NOT show up on an ohmmeter.

Larry

I was familiar with growlers for automotive work but hadn't thought of one for a small rotor.  Not something most train shops would probably have.  I was hoping to see if anyone had ever used one of the Blue Ring testers to check armatures and other coils on Lionel equipment.  Here's the link to the page:    https://anatekinstruments.com/...lue-ring-accessories    It may only work for electronics type coils.  It's not cheap but as a kit it's affordable enough and useful in other electronics troubleshooting that I would have considered buying one if it were known to work on Lionel coils.  No need for it now though.

@harmonyards posted:

If wheel pulling isn’t your thing, there is another alternative......these share the same body casting as postwar 2055, 2065, 665, etc......plenty of those whole chassis assemblies on the bay, .....buy a known good one from a reputable seller, and do a 4 screw fix, ....take out the ailing chassis, slide in a better one,.....more than one way to skin a cat,....😉

Pat

I could pull a wheel if I had to but a chassis swap sounds interesting.  Now that I know it was a lockon problem I won't have to do it, BUT.....  Of the models you cite above is there any particular one that's more robust / better regarded electromechanically than any of the others?  I think I bought mine in the late 80s or early 90s.

@Jayhawk500 posted:

You could also sent it to Pat and do a Pittman upgrade, like I did on my 6-18011

Is there such a thing as a Pittman upgrade for an engine with a transverse motor with spur gears?  Not trying to be a wise guy if there isn't, but if this is a possibility, I'd like to learn about it. 

@R Lamparter posted:

Is there such a thing as a Pittman upgrade for an engine with a transverse motor with spur gears?  Not trying to be a wise guy if there isn't, but if this is a possibility, I'd like to learn about it.

Not for that platform, ....it just wouldn’t be worth it, ....you’d have to be madly in love with it to go through that expense,.....as far as which PW chassis is better than the other when it comes to 2055, 2065, 665, etc......I’ll let the PW experts answer that one,....my only reasoning for suggesting that was if you were uncomfortable pulling a wheel,......I took a quick peek at the bay, and saw those chassis complete anywhere’s from 35.00 bucks on up,....if you couldn’t pull a wheel, by the time you got done shipping it back and forth, you’d surpassed that amount tryin to get yours going,....😉

Pat

But you never know what shape the wheel bearings are going to be in purchasing a 65 year old chassis.