Regarding the question for any locos ever being recalled, one item that comes to mind is the LionChief RS-3. Forget what the exact issue was. Shortly after they were shipped to dealers, they all went back to Lionel. Remember at the time my LHS mentioning his distributor picked up all the locos, no questions asked.
John Quogue RR posted:I sent mine last week, I will post the forum when I receive. I think it's official now this thing is a L E M O N.
You could be right!
Attachments
Images (1)
You are right. That is not chump change. In the past 5 months I have bought 7 engines. Four Lionel and 3 MTH premier. Had to sent 4 back for repair. Two Lionel and two MTH. I must be stupid! That is a lot of money sent to these two companies. To be fair Lionel did pay shipping both ways for the GG1 and it was repaired very quickly. MTH took a little longer to get them back but that is a long time to be without the engines that I paid a lot of money for. I must be stupid! I do really love playing with the trains and my grandson but it does get frustrating. I must be stupid! Maybe it's time to stop buying trains and go back to sending my money to Harley Davidson. I MUST be stupid. Have a good day. I'm done now.
audi posted:Sorry to report my #364 among the defective units. It has a couple of hours on it, but the rh marker board started blinking along with the amfleet coaches it was pulling!
That seems to be the harbinger of doom for these locomotives. Every time I've seen one with the number board issue, smoke has quickly followed! It's always been the right hand number board, something unique about how that's powered and/or wired.
Received mine yesterday and it ran for 3 minutes.
Well I picked up my 4 F40s and 1 NPCU last night at my LHS (Trains N Things in West Trenton, NJ). Based on these posts I gave everything a thorough look over and running before leaving the store. I'm happy to report there were nodamaged hoses, lights etc.
The only issue was the hatch removal, which as suggested here I will gently sand down the edges so it removes more easily.
Attachments
Images (4)
Videos (2)
farmerjohn posted:Received mine yesterday and it ran for 3 minutes.
But did you stop it voluntarily or was the stop forced by circumstances beyond your control? 
It just shorted out. It has a dead short in it somewhere.
Sorry you guys have had so many problems. This has been a very sad thread to read. I hope they have an easy fix and you guys are up and running again soon.
Watch out for the 20 minute mark Glenn. 
Just unpacked and tested my #388, after about 20 minutes of running the sound went out then the number boards and stobe lights started flickering. I had tested two other units but only for about 5 minutes, I will let these run a little longer Sunday.
I'll have to get an RMA on Monday from Lionel. There is definitely a production issue with these units.
I'm waiting to hear what they find on these, from the sound of the failures, my guess is on the flywheel or drive wheels rubbing wires and shorting things.
So what did the folks at Lionel at York say about the issues with these engines?
Well, since York doesn't happen for a few days, we'll know when we get there.
Green Bay & Western posted:So what did the folks at Lionel at York say about the issues with these engines?
I can tell ya what they will say.........
"If you're not happy return it for a refund."
What do you think they will tell people? Um, our QC sucks, we're headed in a different direction, and we don't care about our brand or what it stands for.
This type of thing has been a very common issue the past year. BTO is all they care about....oh and LC+ junk.
But...but... this was a BTO item, so they should care about it.
The videos posted are great! I am reading all these posts just thinking how crappy this is for all of us. Out of the 25 or so engines I have, 24 from Lionel this one has been disappointing. I hope the fix is an easy one. I think we all want this engine to be a good one because it is so much of the fabric of our growing up. Everyone can vividly envision that F40 pulling a bunch of Amtrak cars in real life. It was such a beautiful sight.
i did just buy the MTH F40 Metra and all 6 cars. I grew up in Chicago and man did they do a nice job. It is stunning. I have on order a DCS remote and TIU to integrate with my legacy.
The best part about reading all these posts is how much we all love this hobby. Hopefully Lionel will get this one right.
The F40 is gorgeous imo so hopefully it will be out of the shop soon and up and running on our layouts.
If anyone has any DCS advice for me I am all ears.
If I had to guess, I would think the front motor flywheel is cutting though the wires to the front lights. That would be the only reason that the marker lamps on mine flash in cadence with the speed of the locomotive.
I'd stop running it until it's fixed as the next step is a direct short and smoke! The smoke is even if you have it turned off, it's not optional.
Since the number boards appear to be wired to track power without any switching, they may be the wires that short everything.
Good advice, RMA Monday morning
On Lionel's behalf, this beautiful set of Diesels I KNOW, were meant to be Trouble Free....Fun to Run Scale like Models of the real thing....Sometimes things Happen, sometimes Good, sometimes not so good, it's simply Life. You can be Sure, Lionel will Take every measure Possible to "Please" Everyone that so kindly purchased these nice Legacy Diesels.... BTO....It's definitely a Manufacturer Error, Lionel, I am Certain, will Step Up Quality Control to see this does not happen again. (If Lionel has any one reading this wildfire thread, it's time to Chime In.) This could have happened to any of our Favorite Manufacturers, this time Lionel. We need to simply keep Calm, let the Storm subside and Go Forward...Happy Railroading...Let's have Fun at York!!! WOW!!!
leapinlarry posted:On Lionel's behalf, this beautiful set of Diesels I KNOW, were meant to be Trouble Free....Fun to Run Scale like Models of the real thing....Sometimes things Happen, sometimes Good, sometimes not so good, it's simply Life. You can be Sure, Lionel will Take every measure Possible to "Please" Everyone that so kindly purchased these nice Legacy Diesels.... BTO....It's definitely a Manufacturer Error, Lionel, I am Certain, will Step Up Quality Control to see this does not happen again. (If Lionel has any one reading this wildfire thread, it's time to Chime In.) This could have happened to any of our Favorite Manufacturers, this time Lionel. We need to simply keep Calm, let the Storm subside and Go Forward...Happy Railroading...Let's have Fun at York!!! WOW!!!
You are right, keep calm and carry on.
Time for Lionel and others to try "Burn In" on new models. From the responses here, it suggests that a 2 hour run of 10 units would have exposed these problems.
I think this bucket of trouble caught Lionel by surprise, clearly they didn't expect this kind of issue. Still not sure exactly what happened, but certainly the QC on the production line fell on it's face! I do think they may want to do a bit more acceptance testing in the future of early models in a new production run.
If it was just the F40PH that was having problems you could cut them some slack. Unfortunately, the Allegheny and the GG1 have been problematic also. Makes me think a lot about whether I want to make any additional purchases until Lionel can again prove that they can put out dependable locomotives.
I think the issues with the above mentioned pair aren't nearly as prevalent as the ones for the F40PH. From the feedback I've been getting from the F40PH locomotives that went out of Henning's, a vast majority of them have already failed. There is some production glitch that is killing them, hopefully Lionel has gotten to the bottom of it. I have this sense that it's going to turn out to be some fairly simple thing like wire routing causing the issue, it'll be interesting to get the whole story.
Whew! Dodged this bullet. Only because I am focusing on items on my layout before 1959. I hope they find the root cause and my new UP SD40's will not be plagued with the same issues.
Well, I got a shipping notice for my F40PH and the Cabbage unit, so soon I'll see how they should run. I'm betting on more than 15 minutes. 
Pretty quick turnaround, I hope this episode is behind me. 
Sounds like they know what's wrong. Pretty impressive turnaround.
They have secretly been reading our posts!
I don't think it is a secret!
Rudy beat me to it! No secret, I'm sure Lionel is very interested in sorting this out.
I am excited to get mine back. As I said yesterday it is an iconic engine.
I'm picking up 3 of these from my dealer at York. Seems like I should just call for an RMA without even opening them and dropping them off up the aisle at lionel....
not terribly excited to throw down $1200 If they're almost guaranteed duds.
If they have a Lionel tech, it might be advised to interface with Lionel about what they've been finding, I'm guessing it might be a simple fix if you get it before you run them and cook something.
If someone is there and knows the answer it would be great. Sounds like something must be making contact in the cab. If it's something that can be fixed before blowing it up by heat shrinking or moving a wire bundle, then maybe they can provide some instruction... pulling a shell isn't beyond basic skills.
My "guess" is a wire getting sanded down by a flywheel on the front motor. I haven't heard the "official" word from Lionel, but that's my best guess not having seen the inside, but having seen three of them fail in the same way. Whatever powers the number boards seems to be involved as the right number board goes in every instance I've seen them fail. Two in the row had a flickering right number board and then "dead". It would also explain some reporting that it was running a bit jerky.
This is all total speculation on my part, it'll be interesting to hear the actual failure reason from Lionel. 
Not unheard of. I've had MTH switchers eat the headlight wires because the wires didn't stay where they're supposed to be routed. I'll ask if they can give a reason and see if they're ok with popping them open. Taking the shell off might also ease the initial release of the tight hatch too.
If I can preemptively fix them, that would be preferred to blowing them up.
I got an e-mail from Lionel and my F40PH is being shipped back to me. That's a one week turn around.
gunrunnerjohn posted:My "guess" is a wire getting sanded down by a flywheel on the front motor. I haven't heard the "official" word from Lionel, but that's my best guess not having seen the inside, but having seen three of them fail in the same way. Whatever powers the number boards seems to be involved as the right number board goes in every instance I've seen them fail. Two in the row had a flickering right number board and then "dead". It would also explain some reporting that it was running a bit jerky.
This is all total speculation on my part, it'll be interesting to hear the actual failure reason from Lionel.
Based upon these type of comments I took the shell off my locomotive. There are a couple of harnesses to guide wires to the front of the locomotive and to keep the wires away from the motor flywheel. On my unit a couple of wires worked themselves out of the harnesses, but they were not near the motor flywheel. I secured the wires to make sure they are never free.
The shell wires are separate from the wires of the motherboard. The shell wires connect to motherboard wires by series of 6 or perhaps 8 (I did not count them) plug connectors. Another possibility is that some of these got reversed during the manufacturing. With some AC circuits the wires can be reversed and all seems well for a little while, but then failure.
With some hiccups, my Phase II unit #200 is still going well. The hiccups were rubbing of the coupler wires on the wheels and a broken wire from the pickups. It has about 15 hours of run time.
Most failures that I hear about are Phase III units; thus, it might not be a surprise that this Phase II units is ok.
Needless to say, my experience with these units have been largely positive; especially when considering all the failures many of you have had to deal with. Even so, knowing what I know now would I sill drop $800 on the powered and cabbage units? Probably not. They are nicely detailed and have some cool lighting features and such but also have a cheapness feel to them. They could really use a cast metal chassis and get rid of the flimsy plastic chassis side frames.
Also, why is there 1/8 inch of space between the wheel and the truck side frame? The large gap really detracts from the look of the trucks. 2343 from 1950 has much tighter tolerances and looks much better.
Also of note is that these units go around 048 curves just fine. I have tested every type of rolling stock I have: freight cars, 15" aluminum passenger cars, articulated couplers, fixes couplers, and even the lightest of MPC rolling stock with plastic wheels. Everything navigates the 048 curves and switches just fine without any derailments. It seems that Lionel was overly cautious in calling these units 054 in the catalog.
Attachments
Videos (1)
The one bright spot with these engines are the scale coupler pads. I discovered them in the box as I was packing the engine up for it's return to Lionel for an overhaul.
Gunrunner, do you get your engine back tomorrow?
I can't say much...but...all the F40 issues have been properly documented in our chat!
This chat has been invaluable to getting our diesels fixed. Thanks to OGR for the forum. Let's just say I heard there are some really smart people in this chat.
Everyone has mentioned every issue.
I hope I get mine back in time for the weekend.
The Cabbage unit arrived today, the other one is scheduled for tomorrow. They just replaced both couplers, all seems well with that one. The powered unit will be interesting, and I'll also be able to link them up and run them around to see if everything works.
Yup, makes sense. Bad lubricant rotted your couplers as you suspected.
How is it gunrunner?
The box is sitting on my bench, but I have to run out to pick something up at Henning's that they forgot when they loaded up and moved out. I figure I'll at least look it over before I come to York, time is getting short...
I did get my F40PH yesterday. Lionel replaced a defective RCMC (not sure what that is--maybe someone can help out with this), tested all functions and ran it on the track for some time. I ran it a lot bit yesterday and it runs great. I have to believe they also lubricated the internal gears that many were wondering about because it runs very smooth, better than the other Amtrak #364 that I did not have any problems with. It makes me wonder if the gears in 364 need to be lubricated. Bottom line is: Lionel made the product right!!
Yes, it was short lubricant. Needs to be done
I would send in 364 or have it done at your hobby shop. Better to be safe than sorry.
I agree John--that is my plan.
I asked Dave Olsen directly today about these. There's 2 things.
1. the gearboxes are dry. Twist off the trucks and grease.
2. The headlight wires are rubbing the flywheel. This takes out a lot of stuff if it shorts.
He told me it was ok to open them up and make sure the headlight wires are out of the way or otherwise protected (tape, heat shrink, etc...), and if they still went bad then I could still send them in.
I haven't even taken mine out of the box yet, but I'm going to pop them all open and make sure the wires are well tied up before firing them up.
Here is some video of my Metra MTH F40. So much fun. Enjoy boys.
Attachments
Videos (1)
My two are close, I still have to resolve the dim number boards on the Cabbage unit and they'll be ready for "prime time"
I am still waiting on powered unit 364 from Lionel. Hope it's not fried too bad. It's been 9 days in shop.
I heard today that Lionel released a dealer FAQ sheet on these locos. Basically what to look for and recommended fixes. Any have a copy that they can post?
I am sworn to secrecy. Every issue on sheet made the chat.
All the service locations got the FAQ sheet. There are a few things to look for.
I talked to Ryan, Dave, and Dean while at York. The consensus opinion on the dim Cabbage unit number boards is generally that they're about right and the powered unit number boards are way too bright. After consideration, I think I believe them, and I think I'll just dim the powered unit, that will be easy with a resistor.
Well I took the preemptive maintenance option and opened them up before I ran them. Real easy, 4 screws in the front, 2 under the rear trucks. Don't lift too far as the front headlight wires are a little short.
You don't need to disconnect anything, you can do the work with the shell still plugged in. Particularly on the phase II units, be mindful of the long ladder to the engine compartment door that hangs off the shell (and isn't held on by much). Once in there, you'll see that the basic problem is that there's only a small piece of Chinese scotch tape holding the strobe/numberboard/cab light wire harness to the roof. Clearance is tight, so if this tape lets go (or isn't there) it's all over, apparently in 20-30 minutes.
With the design of the PCB having the inputs across the back, going over the flywheel is, unfortunately mandatory.
In lieu of scotch tape, I covered the wire bundle with 3M electrical tape. You need to cover all the way to the plugs to cover the area over the flywheel. It's just real tight in there.
While you're in there, poke the access panel out of the roof and save yourself the trouble of prying it out from the top.
Ive run both of mine a bit and so far so good. Tomorrow I'll probably just assemble them as a train and let em run for a while to see what happens. I assume if they make it an hour, they're ok.
im going to reopen them at some point and check the tape. If I see anything, then something more invasive, like trying to move the harness may be in order....
Havent opened my cabbage yet, I assume that doesn't have any issues with shorts, but it's getting late enough I don't feel like starting on a 3rd.
Attachments
Images (3)
Hmmm. The cab "interior" looks a bit rediculous in the position of the control stand.
Well, here's how those wires SHOULD have been routed if they had any brains. Saving an inch or two of wire created the whole issue with the flywheel!
When I do upgrades, that's how I run the lighting wires to avoid getting tangled up with the flywheel.
Attachments
gunrunnerjohn posted:Well, here's how those wires SHOULD have been routed if they had any brains. Saving an inch or two of wire created the whole issue with the flywheel!
When I do upgrades, that's how I run the lighting wires to avoid getting tangled up with the flywheel.
That is exactly how my phase II unit is wired. It has two harnesses which guides the bundle of wires around the motor flywheel. On my unit a couple of wires worked themselves out of the two harnesses. Brings up many questions. But one is: "what did the manufacturer know and when did they know it?" The appearance is that the manufacturer discovered the flaw in the middle/end of the run and corrected it but did not go back to correct the flawed units.
It boggles my mind that it was ever wired like this. I wonder if they wired the prototypes like this that Lionel inspected? It doesn't look like there's enough slack to wire it properly, too bad! 
Everyone should send their power units back to get fixed properly. They pay for shipping. Don't let this bite you in the *** after warranty. Also they are making new covers for units. It was in dealer memo. I say no way was prototype wired this way. In production it looks like they opted for the shortest point (no pun intended on the short) is a straight line. No QC on this production they totally half assed this. No reason to hold the bag for a $450-500 purchase. Send it back.
Are these the roof covers I suggested they make a few weeks ago? The thick paint excuse was bogus in my opinion.They were made poorly.
Fred
The dealer sheet advised they would make new covers. Fingers crossed. Yes, to any average Joe it's pretty obvious they didn't fit and the magnets were too strong. Put electrical tape over magnets to dumb them down
John Quogue RR posted:Put electrical tape over magnets to dumb them down
Seems we are already dumbed down buying these things sight unseen.
To be fair Lionel has made so many things we love. This one not so much but we seem to spend a lot of time talking about it. Maybe we love this one too?
John Quogue RR posted:Everyone should send their power units back to get fixed properly. They pay for shipping. Don't let this bite you in the *** after warranty. Also they are making new covers for units. It was in dealer memo. I say no way was prototype wired this way. In production it looks like they opted for the shortest point (no pun intended on the short) is a straight line. No QC on this production they totally half assed this. No reason to hold the bag for a $450-500 purchase. Send it back.
I do not have these units, so you can dismiss my comments if you wish, but IMO we have to stop accepting bad product. SEND them back. DO NOT attempt home repairs. Only then will they, be it Lionel, MTH or whomever, get their s**t together.
Oman posted:John Quogue RR posted:Everyone should send their power units back to get fixed properly. They pay for shipping. Don't let this bite you in the *** after warranty. Also they are making new covers for units. It was in dealer memo. I say no way was prototype wired this way. In production it looks like they opted for the shortest point (no pun intended on the short) is a straight line. No QC on this production they totally half assed this. No reason to hold the bag for a $450-500 purchase. Send it back.
I do not have these units, so you can dismiss my comments if you wish, but IMO we have to stop accepting bad product. SEND them back. DO NOT attempt home repairs. Only then will they, be it Lionel, MTH or whomever, get their s**t together.
RIGHT ON - Keith - we always talk about "that solution" to an on going problem, but few seem to put the heat on the importers by sending the stuff back 'til they get it right. Ya can't be a victim if you contribute to the crime.
Oman posted:John Quogue RR posted:Everyone should send their power units back to get fixed properly. They pay for shipping. Don't let this bite you in the *** after warranty. Also they are making new covers for units. It was in dealer memo. I say no way was prototype wired this way. In production it looks like they opted for the shortest point (no pun intended on the short) is a straight line. No QC on this production they totally half assed this. No reason to hold the bag for a $450-500 purchase. Send it back.
I do not have these units, so you can dismiss my comments if you wish, but IMO we have to stop accepting bad product. SEND them back. DO NOT attempt home repairs. Only then will they, be it Lionel, MTH or whomever, get their s**t together.
I'm one of the lucky ones that hasn't had a problem with my F40 - yet (and mine's the #364). I figure I have at least an hour or more in run time, so far so good. If, to prevent future burn-ups, I make sure the number board wires are secured to the top of the shell, you bet I'll do that myself and prevent the hassle of sending it back. I agree Lionel should have thought of this causing problems and put a little more wiring there and routed it around the flywheel. But they didn't, however it's not hard to fix.
Several years ago when Lionel came out with their Amfleet "End" car, the sensor wires controlling the cab car lights were reversed, meaning the red marker lights were on when the cab car was leading, with no headlight. Every single car was delivered that way. Thankfully one of our forum members posted a detailed tutorial of how to fix it. When you know what you're going for it actually isn't too hard, and I did it myself. Problem solved. No way am I going to send something back to Lionel for such an easy fix, that literally took me 10 minutes to finish. True, it should have been done right the first time, but these are toy trains, if I can fix it myself and it's not rocket science I'm going to do it!
Now if it was a paint defect, or something to do with command control/RailSounds boards, etc, that's another story...
WBC posted:gunrunnerjohn posted:Well, here's how those wires SHOULD have been routed if they had any brains. Saving an inch or two of wire created the whole issue with the flywheel!
When I do upgrades, that's how I run the lighting wires to avoid getting tangled up with the flywheel.
That is exactly how my phase II unit is wired. It has two harnesses which guides the bundle of wires around the motor flywheel. On my unit a couple of wires worked themselves out of the two harnesses. Brings up many questions. But one is: "what did the manufacturer know and when did they know it?" The appearance is that the manufacturer discovered the flaw in the middle/end of the run and corrected it but did not go back to correct the flawed units.
Here is an interior shot of my phase II unit, locomotive #200.
Clearly two harnesses that guide the cable of wires around the motor. Obviously at some point production changed. Did the manufacturer catch the error of the single harness and change to two harnesses? Or did the manufacturer decide to save a few pennies right in the middle of the run and change to the single harness system?
Anyways, my unit has the wiring arranged like gunrunnerjohn suggests and no major problems as of yet with about 18 hours of run time.
Attachments
Images (1)
It's not like I'm a "wiring genius" or anything, it's just common sense not to put wires where they potentially contact fast spinning flywheels! Sadly, this isn't the first time I've seen something like this.
WBC posted:WBC posted:gunrunnerjohn posted:Well, here's how those wires SHOULD have been routed if they had any brains. Saving an inch or two of wire created the whole issue with the flywheel!
When I do upgrades, that's how I run the lighting wires to avoid getting tangled up with the flywheel.
That is exactly how my phase II unit is wired. It has two harnesses which guides the bundle of wires around the motor flywheel. On my unit a couple of wires worked themselves out of the two harnesses. Brings up many questions. But one is: "what did the manufacturer know and when did they know it?" The appearance is that the manufacturer discovered the flaw in the middle/end of the run and corrected it but did not go back to correct the flawed units.
Here is an interior shot of my phase II unit, locomotive #200.
Clearly two harnesses that guide the cable of wires around the motor. Obviously at some point production changed. Did the manufacturer catch the error of the single harness and change to two harnesses? Or did the manufacturer decide to save a few pennies right in the middle of the run and change to the single harness system?
Anyways, my unit has the wiring arranged like gunrunnerjohn suggests and no major problems as of yet with about 18 hours of run time.
Im honestly not sure that really gets you out of the way. If you look up in the top of the cab with the lights on, the plugs are about even with the shield. The flywheel is a few hairs behind that, so the wires still aren't completely out of the way.
It sounds more to me like if the bundle is tight, then you're ok, but if its hanging down or has any loose wires at all, then you're going to rub through something.
All around, this just isnt the greatest design/packaging for the application. The plugs would have been better off located toward the side of the board, not the middle, and a different cable run (or even cable design, such as a flat ribbon) would definitely have been beneficial.
At least with the lion drive trucks, the motor is fixed in place independent of truck motion and doesnt rock around to create more interference.
I would love to see this service bulletin if someone can post it.
With the wiring illustrated, you can route them farther up and clear the flywheel if desired, however with the wiring in the Phase III models, it's simply too tight it appears. I haven't actually opened it to see if it could be routed to the side.
I've got a phase II and a III and they're both wired the same. I dont know if the route is simply dependent on who assembled it, or if at some point they discovered they could save .004 cents by removing an inch of wire. Its a plug connection on both ends, so if a longer harness was available, you could just swap the short one for one that has more reach.
Here's a new thread on what it takes to fix the intensity of the F40PH number boards.
Legacy Amtrak F40PH Number Board Brightness Fix
Quick question as I just received the two CSX units. The gearboxes as previously mentioned are obviously very dry. I've lubricated the external gears but that is not enough. How do I go about twisting the trucks off to get to the internal gears? Are there screws to remove, or a certain direction to twist? I've already had the bodies off in order to push out the roof panels. Actually pulled off one of the radiator fan covers trying to get it off from the outside, just finished re-glueing that. I can tell these aren't 100% but I think I will be happy once they are running smoothly.
You might want to check the flywheels of the motors and make sure that they are on straight. If there is a wobble in the flywheel that could also impact operation.
I put about an hour of run time on them and the girttiness/tick is still there on both. Just fired off an email to Lionel for an RMA. Disappointing but not entirely unexpected. Hopefully they take care of them.
I just received my new Lionel 6-82461 CSX F40PH #9999 and the engine immediately tripped the breaker on my ZW-L transformer. The engine arrived missing a roof Lift Ring on the cab and had two broken air hoses on the back.
I can't tell what the problem might be because the breaker immediately trips: there are no lights or sounds. The wires inside do not look like they are cut. I rerouted the wires over the front motor to the side of the Cab. I know cutting of the wires by the motor was a problem from several posts. Everything inside looks good, no burn marks, no smell --- but also NO movement. sound or lights.
Sincerely, John Rowlen
