This is the part I don't like about repairing trains. UPDATED 8/11, Final chapter 8/12

@Chuck Sartor posted:

Last week a young enthusiast and his mom came to my shop. In hand was a fairly new Lionel Lionchief / bluetooth  ES44 diesel engine. Only ran a few times since new. Popped the shell and I got a surprise! The 2 motors are like the light duty handcar motor. My first thought was the circuit board. Put some leads from muli-tester. Nope, getting voltage from the socket for the motors. Wiring looked good, so checked the motors with a ohm reading.  Both of them with open circuit. No good. Checked Lionel's website. Motors are not available.

 The young lad and mom were waiting and broke the news. Both motors burn't out, and no replacements available. needless to say both were extremely disappointed. The set was gifted to him. Now I told them, it may be only be temporary out of stock, or the motors may never be available again.

It is this type of situation that tends to turn first time customers return or forget about the hobby.  

A lot of great discussion concerning Lionel and their sets and various motor issues.

I believe we need to get back to the issue at hand,  are there drop in motors available to repair this engine?

If so where can they be obtained so Chuck can repair this engine - even if its with the same scrap DC motors.

There are some real experts on this Forum who can answer this question to some degree.

Lets see if we can as a group get the job done.

Chuck, 

Do you have better photos of the motors in question and their part numbers?

Do you have a photo of the motor out of the engine so we can see the spur gear?

It would be a good start in hunting something down. 

The motor is common and can be had, its transfering the unique gear that is difficult. That said why would anyone want to use that same motor? 

Chuck has the experience, I am sure he will solve this.

Pete

@Norton posted:

BTW that isn't the only engine with that tiny motor. The starter set 0-8-0s and Docksiders have a similar motor and I believe some on the Lionchief versions had that same small motor carried over.

Pete

I have a Lionel 2032030 0-6-0T LC+2 on pre-order.  I was wondering how they make a decent loco for only $250, but it looks the same as the docksider which went for $100.  Hope the motors in the $250 version are better than what I see here in this thread.

Is it just the brushes in the motors?...take off the brush end cap and see if the armatures are burnt or the brushes are gone....maybe tear apart an old slot car motor for the brush cap....but it will have to be a cheap one as the better slot car motors have replaceable carbon/copper brushes in them.

How about a brushed model airplane motor?

I don't know what Chuck's shop rate is but fixing it could get expensive real quick.

If the engine was replaced: (Based on a Lionchief+ GP38 pricing)

1.  Could existing handheld remote be transferred to new engine? Otherwise a universal remote has to be part of the deal.

2.  What level do you have to get to eliminate the cheap motor? There seems to be the street price $315-350 and now a version at about          $190. Both without remotes included. (I'm thinking the $190 version may have this same cheap aspect.)

3.  Youngster would probably take to the Bluetooth app like a duck to water. Therefore, a transformer wouldn't be my choice for him.

Update: talked to Lionel today. Talked with Katie who was cordial and professional, as usual. I asked her what the status of the motor I need. ( gave the number to her) she came back and said that their stock of replacement motors has already been depleted. Guess I'm not the only one with this problem with this engine. She said to call back late October and she would have a better idea if the motor is in stock/ will be available/ permanently discontinued.  Drat. I guess I need to figure this out for myself.  A couple of light bulbs went off in my head. The first picture compaires the locomotive motor to a handcar motor. The locomotive motor was about 10% larger. Speaking of which, you can't remove the plate as it will not fit over the worm gear. So the handcar motor is out. Next was John's (Lionel Parts) suggestion of a 8060 4-6-4 motor. Close, it may have worked, but the mounting holes were way off on the mounting plate. See pix's. one is blurry, but you get the idea. Can't upgrade the motor much, as a round motor will not fit, it needs flat sides as the motor sits in the narrow truck frame. Next I checked a series 2 dockside motor. ( Last pix ) Just about perfect, mounting holes line up, fits in the truck frame, I guess it is the same basic motor, and there is more than enough room in the body shell for the flywheels, something that the original motor did not have. Half the battle won. Now the challenge is removing and replacing the worm gear without ruining the motor or gear, or both.

Chuck, if you don't have a puller that will work, a Great Planes gear puller will get the gears off. Just google the name, lots of hits at varying prices. Having done a few of these let me suggest drilling the replacement out to fit the shaft. Then use retaining compound or CA to hold it in place. Trying to press it on can be risky especially if you don't have a basket of motors.

Pete

Lionel Command Control Pickup Truck Motor...

Lionel M7 set.

Glad you made some progress Chuck!

Everyone says that Frank Timko is a wizard when it comes to removing and installing worm gears.  Maybe he would entertain a phone call or chat, and offer you some advice?  Honestly I wish someone would invest some quality time shadowing him, or even make a video.  I think the worm gear swap will become a very important repair skill in the years ahead.

Also, if you really needed to use the 8060 motor from the baby 4-6-4, couldn't you just drill new holes in the mounting plate a little further apart, that match the 8060 motor?  Thanks for sharing, we're all learning from your struggles!

Looks like Train Nut has a solution. Cut the flywheel off if it can’t be used. 

Train Nuts motor is from the 0-8-0.  I have them in stock, I will check for fit. (Screw hole placement.) The plate could be drilled to accept a different motor, if needed. I would prefer to keep the work to a minimum .

I hope it works Chuck. Keep us posted. 

I will close this out by saying SUCCESS! After looking some motors over, I decided on the motor for the 4-6-0 Harry Potter Hogwart Express. The screw holes aligned with the screw holes in the mounting bracket. And it had the shortest worm gear to pull. And it had the small benefit of a couple of brass flywheels. Pulling the worms off wasn't as nasty job as I expected. I laid a hot solder iron on the worm gear on each motor for about 3 minutes this expanded the gear enough to quickly use a thin narrow punch while it still hot and knock the gear off the shaft without damaging the new motors. After everything cooled, I was able to tap the worm gears from the original motors on the new motors. Just little taps at a time and the gears went on without bending the motor shaft. Maybe a little luck was involved there. Remounted the motor assemblies with a little new grease. Wired the motors back up and crossed my fingers. To my amazement it worked and ran smooth. YEA!  I know of a couple of people that are going to be excited tomorrow!    I'm not going to charge them a whole lot, the time I spent on research and repair time I'm taking as a personal challenge to see if it could be fixed with the parts I had on hand. I enclosed some pictures of the new motor with the new gear on and the original motor, and after every thing was back together.  Now I just hope these motors will last longer than the originals! Thanks for your support and reading this...................out.          

Now only of Lionel could have provided the information and parts to pull this off...

Nice work Chuck!  No way Lionel could have gotten it fixed in 3 days even if they had the parts.

Way to go Chuck. Little guy will never forget you. Let’s not forget kudos to Train Nut for getting us to think out of the box. 

These are the things which will bring more new hobbyists into the realm of trains. The mother likely will tell friends and the boy is sure to make comment among his friends about the fix that saved his train.

Great work Chuck!!  

Well done indeed.

Very nice effort and conclusion. Well done.