Lionel L-1

Try pushing it forward or backwards on the track, I got mine to unlock that way

Thanks so much. It worked!

@Vinny DeAngelis posted:

Thanks so much. It worked!

No problem, make sure u grease that gear box

Grease isn’t going to help this gearbox. You shouldn’t have to ‘break loose’ a gearbox if it jams itself up. Not cool! This is what my 1369 did before I sent it back. Lionel needs to know about this.

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

Grease isn’t going to help this gearbox. You shouldn’t have to ‘break loose’ a gearbox if it jams itself up. Not cool! This is what my 1369 did before I sent it back. Lionel needs to know about this.

They don’t care. They’ve been given ample evidence this gearbox is garbage, it’s basically the same one as the one in the H10s and K4s.

These engines are basically being delivered with dry gears. Jamming or not it is imperative an ample amount of grease go in the gearbox.

I put about 3 ml in mine in 1 ml increments then running it in briefly and adding more.

Mine was noisy out of the box , but is quieting down the more it's run. Not unlike my 0-6-0 from last year.

Norm is right, they did a poor job on setting up the gearboxes on these. I'm going with extra break in time in lieu of shipping it to them, hoping it's fixed right, and doesn't get crushed on the trip back.

I have decapod on order, and crossing my fingers for the best as it's a unique wheel arrangement on my layout. If I'm lucky they may be forced to use the MTH chassis on this one.

After that, I've had enough. Generally speaking ,build quality has been on a slow but steady decline since the days of early Legacy.

Paint issues, and gearbox issues seem the be regular occurances. Throw in the occasional board that cuts out, or doesn't hold programming.

I am totally in the dark about new Lionel motors.  I ordered a Cotton Belt Legacy GP20 from the 2023 catalog, last I checked delivery 12/31/23.  Would this engine have similar problems, or is this something only model steam locomotives have?  That might be a dumb question.

I’m curious what Lionel has to say about these engines. Somebody who sent one in could let us know what they said they did to correct these …….I wonder what their remedy is?…..honestly, they need to ditch that entire concept of the Kline style motor mounting system. They were underpowered, & bad news back then, and clearly it’s not working now …..whoever thinks these things have “plenty of power” is only fooling themselves. The MTH L1 is an absolute tank. Why in the world Lionel put all that effort to swap it to a lousy 385 Mabuchi boggles my mind, because they clearly modded the MTH chassis to suit their needs,…..I could see if they only bought the shell tools, and then adapted their existing Mikado chassis, but that ain’t the case, …..I see all the evidence you’d need to see to know it’s the MTH chassis, hands down…….I’d bet the reasoning is to fit that “rugged” Legacy board fitment…..😉

Pat

Mostly a steam issue.  The L1 was an ex mth tooling Lionel acquired. What no one expected was them to no get the mth Drive line.  The gp20 is also ex mth, tho I don't think diesels have as much gear issues as steam, but knowing Lionel..........

@harmonyards posted:

I’d bet the reasoning is to fit that “rugged” Legacy board fitment…..😉

Pat

Bingo. In smaller locomotives the forward mounted small 385 motor allows for the Legacy electronics to fit and a wireless connection between the locomotive and tender. Keeping the large motor in the firebox with gear tower MTH used would result in all the electronics having to go in the tender, and a 20 pin tether between the locomotive and tender. Instead of redesigning the electronics to fit Lionel modified the chassis to fit their electronics, hence the smaller motor.

What series/size Pittman did MTH use in the L1? Was it the smaller one they used in their H10? I don’t think Lionel has a Canon replacement for anything other than a 92XX series Pittman.

@harmonyards posted:

I’m curious what Lionel has to say about these engines. Somebody who sent one in could let us know what they said they did to correct these …….I wonder what their remedy is?…..honestly, they need to ditch that entire concept of the Kline style motor mounting system. They were underpowered, & bad news back then, and clearly it’s not working now …..whoever thinks these things have “plenty of power” is only fooling themselves. The MTH L1 is an absolute tank. Why in the world Lionel put all that effort to swap it to a lousy 385 Mabuchi boggles my mind, because they clearly modded the MTH chassis to suit their needs,…..I could see if they only bought the shell tools, and then adapted their existing Mikado chassis, but that ain’t the case, …..I see all the evidence you’d need to see to know it’s the MTH chassis, hands down…….I’d bet the reasoning is to fit that “rugged” Legacy board fitment…..😉

Pat

I have been thinking the same thing too. What is their thoughts on these things? It is going to start being that anything that uses that type of gearbox setup won't be something that will be bought by the majority of the consumers if they know that these are going to be an issue. Most likely what will happen with some of us is that we will seek other things to buy and have them upgraded or altered in some way without having any of the gearbox issues.

What I am saying is that what we(or me myself) would normally order(preorder), will drastically reduce(or disappear entirely) regardless of a gearbox potential issue or not. I think @RickO has said it quite enough times over the years, they are losing his business because of quality issues that they don't seem to want to address.

Pat, you know I have a number of projects that we have chatted about that I haven't even sent yet. It will slowly become me asking you, "Hey Pat, I got another one of these old engines. I know we've done 6 of these already, renumbered, rebuilt, altered to a A, B, C, D or whatever it was, what do you think on this one that we should do?" Yeah, that is what it is going to turn into for me. Heck, @Norm Charbonneau is a tinkerer, be interesting to see him take another old engine and change it somehow.

@Dave NYC Hudson PRR K4 posted:

I have been thinking the same thing too. What is their thoughts on these things? It is going to start being that anything that uses that type of gearbox setup won't be something that will be bought by the majority of the consumers if they know that these are going to be an issue. Most likely what will happen with some of us is that we will seek other things to buy and have them upgraded or altered in some way without having any of the gearbox issues.

What I am saying is that what we(or me myself) would normally order(preorder), will drastically reduce(or disappear entirely) regardless of a gearbox potential issue or not. I think @RickO has said it quite enough times over the years, they are losing his business because of quality issues that they don't seem to want to address.

Pat, you know I have a number of projects that we have chatted about that I haven't even sent yet. It will slowly become me asking you, "Hey Pat, I got another one of these old engines. I know we've done 6 of these already, renumbered, rebuilt, altered to a A, B, C, D or whatever it was, what do you think on this one that we should do?" Yeah, that is what it is going to turn into for me. Heck, @Norm Charbonneau is a tinkerer, be interesting to see him take another old engine and change it somehow.

We say this everyday of the week old buddy!…..I speak with head mechanics at West Albany & Topeka shops on a daily basis, & the popular consensus is buy old & rebuild, at least you know what you got!!….seems like the mid 90’s till 2005ish??…..the stuff was built like tanks …..with maybe a couple of no-no’s …….when one of us does buy a  brand new locomotive, to the workbench is the first place it goes!…..although there’s one shop foreman in the inner sanctum that refuses to buy new, but he shall remain nameless in this conversation!….😉

Pat

Well, one thing we all know Pat, our locomotives are in good hands(great hands actually) at the Harmon Yards Shops.

Other than the dry gear box, my copy of the L1 (Santa Fe version) has been perfect.  Perhaps my L1 is the only one. I regularly pull 20+ cars for a couple of hours straight.  Can't do that with the Weaver or K-Line locomotives with the 385 forward facing motor as they will overheat. Forward, reverse or held in place there is not any jamming or slipping of the gears.  I know what to expect to hear if there where problems with the L1 as the Weaver pacific locomotive has significant slippage and grinding of the gears.

@harmonyards posted:

When one of us does buy a  brand new locomotive, to the workbench is the first place it goes!

I just picked up a NIB Premier PS3 Santa Fe 2900 class Northern from 2016. First thing I did after making sure it ran was to swap the stock generic motor for a ball bearing 9234 Pittman. I didn't need to, but I know it'll run better with the Pittman.

RS385 motors are fine in scale diesels, I've got no problem with them in that application. There's two of them, and quite a few people run multiple powered diesels when pulling a long or heavy train. Heavy, diecast, steam locomotives are not a good application for a RS385, especially since most people don't run multiple steam locomotives at the head of a train. A RS385 doesn't have enough torque even in something as small as a Mikado. MTH had the right idea with their Mikado chassis by fitting it with a 9434 size Pittman motor. It'll pull a Lionel Mikado backwards easily (don't ask how I know).

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

What series/size Pittman did MTH use in the L1? Was it the smaller one they used in their H10? I don’t think Lionel has a Canon replacement for anything other than a 92XX series Pittman.

MTH used a 9434 Pittman in their L1, same as what they used in their USRA Mikado.

@WBC posted:

Other than the dry gear box, my copy of the L1 (Santa Fe version) has been perfect.  Perhaps my L1 is the only one. I regularly pull 20+ cars for a couple of hours straight.  Can't do that with the Weaver or K-Line locomotives with the 385 forward facing motor as they will overheat. Forward, reverse or held in place there is not any jamming or slipping of the gears.  I know what to expect to hear if there where problems with the L1 as the Weaver pacific locomotive has significant slippage and grinding of the gears.

A 385 is a 385, it don’t matter how you sugarcoat it. I’m glad you can happily justify it in your own mind, and I’m glad yours is working as advertised. For some of us, we know it’s a pretty poor set up out the gate…….call it whatever you’d like, needing room for the electronics, or just plain being cheap. ( I claim the latter ) …..They could’ve done a better job at execution,…..Personally, I’d rather had seen them deal with coming up with a new tether solution, and had left the stock MTH chassis alone, ….as mentioned several times, as far as mechanicals, the difference between Lionel’s L1, and MTH’s model is night and day…..

Pat

To further point to what Pat is saying, it seems that some may be better than others out of the box. Pat had to mess a bit with mine to get it in better working order, or best working order depending on how you view it. Being that mine is the only one model that Pat looked at(1369), it is hard to say whether they are all equally the same out of the box. Are they all going to be sleeping wrecks waiting to happen, hard to say. As Pat had said on the topic with mine, "if you have no issues after giving it grease, count that as a blessing, if it makes some noise and doesn't run, it's not going to run without working on it", or something to that effect.

In any case, these are definitely not going to be the best models that came out of the box. Curious will be what the one of the set is like since we haven't heard anything yet. Will it be a sleeper?