Need to rewire all my LTI 6-19xxx Passenger Cars!!

oh my god!...........brings new meaning to: "whats wrong scarecrow?.....fraid of a little....fire?"....that's ugly..

Lucky you did not have a blazing fire!

Hey Guys.....oh yeah....scared the CRAP out of me. The coach went up in smoke like you would not believe! And if you look at the steel frame in the pictures....you can see it's actually discolored by the heat the wire generated! I gotta tell ya; this situation gave me a new respect for O gauge model railroading. The track may only have 18 - 20 volts....but at 15 amps....that kind of power CAN cause a fire......no joke.

I just ordered 20 feet (10 feet red and 10 feet black) of 18ga super-flexible silicon wiring. I'll use that to rewire all the passenger cars. I'm also going to take some smaller diameter heat-shrink tubing, cut it length-wise and create a type of grommet around the stamped square opening in the steel frames. I'll use silicone caulk to hold the tubing in place. That should work well. 

might want to look into something called cross-link wire....we use it in the automotive field, it takes heat a whole lot better than standard PVC wire....places like Kimball Midwest, Fosters, and SOS Metal sell it. I use it on my layout....you can hold it to a cigarette lighter and it wont melt....

Good to know HarmonyYards.....I will check that out!

This is an issue that affects many modern-era Lionel passenger cars. You wouldn't believe how many of the new "baby-madison" and newer "2400 series" type cars are returned to our store completely burned up, roller base plates, trucks etc melted beyond recognition. Real PITA to repair these over and over.

And the pickup wires keep getting thinner and thinner, so they never trip a breaker before going ablaze. I observed yet another size reduction occur after 2013. Almost as thin as a human hair.

GregR......that is INSANE! As I said earlier, it was a good thing I was at the control panel and was able to "pull the plug". But I have to tell ya, the car kept smoking/smoldering well after the power was cut.

And I was in complete shock to see the wire covered by cardboard! Who thought that was a good idea?

Junior, You might want to consider redoing the cars with an LED wiring kit from Henning's Trains as long as you're at it.

Hi Tom.....good idea....I'll check that out

Tom beat me to it.   If you're going to the trouble of opening them up, might as well get great lighting that draws a fraction of the current of the existing lighting.  Each kit does two cars.

 Passenger Car LED Lighting Kit

If you don't mind soldering, you can do it even cheaper using the lighting regulator modules and reels of LED's.

 LED Lighting Regulator

Junior,

Do you have a TVS (Transient Voltage Suppressor)  and fast blow fuses installed?

If not - it would save a lot of worry doing it.

bruce

Hey GunRunnerJohn! Excellent alternative. I checked out the LED lighting kit and they are pretty pricey. I will check out your light regulator option as well.

Hi Bruce....yes I do have TVS diodes across the TIU outputs. And I use 10A circuit breakers in lieu of fuses. What shocked me (pun intended) was how FAST the wire went up in smoke and did heat damage to the car's frame. It was as if the car was wired with nichrome wire! I may have to rethink the use of circuit breakers and go with (or in addition to) fuses.

Junior posted:

I'm guessing that one (both?) of the Red wires connected to the pick-up roller shorted out against the stamped square opening (the edges on these opening are pretty sharp).

If a pick-up wire had its insulation sliced by a sharp chassis square edge and caused the short, I would expect just the short length of wire under the car between the pick-up roller and the frame would have toasted.  In any case, if you're rewiring anyway consider adding a resettable fuse (about 10 cents each on eBay, free shipping).

So in operation, if there is a short the fuse trips and of course the lights go out.  After the short is removed, the fuse essentially cools down and self-resets after seconds and the lamps come back on.  You have to select the fuse rating (in Amps).  The one above is just an example I had posted recently for a different thread - I'm pretty sure there have been OGR threads where a suitable fuse rating has been suggested for lighted passenger cars.

In a somewhat cynical view of the scenario, simply changing to thicker wire simply means it will take longer for wiring to melt...though if the issue was indeed compromised insulation you'd think thicker insulation might better handle the sharp entry edges.  Also, if the issue is a short between pick-up wire and chassis, changing to LEDs is not by itself the solution.

I use a PTC between the two pickups when I do my LED upgrades, this protects the wiring in case of a derailment where one pickup is sitting on the outside rail.  I use a 250ma trip PTC as the lighting only consumes around 20-30 milliamps.

There is no realistic solution to the pickup wire being chaffed and shorting to the chassis, other than making sure you protect the wire.   That isn't a significant issue, at least I haven't seen that often enough to go out of my way to protect against it.  I do typically use heatshrink around a wire coming through a chassis hole to help prevent the wear on the insulation.

It looks as if tbe wires to the trucks had too little slack in them.  Tension can increase chaffing.

Also I use TPC 400 or PowerMasters with PowerHouses.  That combo seems to have faster acting fuses.