Problem with club engine


josephbw

josephbw

Active Member
We have a Life Like by Walthers GP-20 at the club that has had issues, been repaired, now has more issues. This engine was bought at a flea market, and we've had it about 4-5 years. Several months ago the engine developed the dreaded split gear lope. I ordered new Athearn gears, bored out the axle hole with a numerical drill bit, installed them, and cured the problem and it ran great for 2 months. Sunday we had an operating session and it started having issues again. When running in reverse the rear truck looked like it was hopping up and down, and running forward it looked like it was hesitating at regular intervals. My first thought was that one of the new gears had split.

So last night at our work session I took it apart again and each of the gears looked perfect, and I could not turn them on the axle. I also checked the gears that drove the axle gears and any other gears I could see, and found no problems. So then I pulled the shell, removed the decoder, weight, and checked the worm gears, ball joints, flywheel, and the rest of the driveline, and could not find any problems there either. I also checked for any obstacles that may have been dragging on the driveline, and nothing there either. I ran it with the shell off closely watching for any interference, and came up with nothing, even with 4 of us closely observing.

Have any of you run in to a similar problem and found a solution? I would appreciate any suggestions or even some silly answers, as I enjoy laughing. :D

Thanks, Joe
 
Somebody dropped it and bent the wheelset? Try swapping the axle that was hopping with another one. Remove the hopping axle and roll it across the table and see if it is rolling smoothly, or looks like the wheels are wallowing in and out.
 
I already did that, and they were true. The weirdest part is that it will run just fine for a while, and all of a sudden just start to act up. Kind of reminds me of my Granddaughters. :eek:
 
As I have posted, I have similar problems (except instead of "grasshoppering" my E5/E6 started derailing the rear truck on curves)! After going through similar "brain damage" and swapping axles, etc., I still had the same problem. In disgust, I finally swapped the body to another LifeLike E6 chassis. Sort of like a brain transplant. I've tried to find Athearn gear/wheel sets, but what they show on their website is for the later inside bearing assemblies, mainly for SD70's. These trucks have the pointed-end axles that fit into the plastic gearboxes that float in the sideframes (which have a tendency to pop out and wind up in "neverland").

My recommendation is to avoid those LifeLike E-units like the plague! In the ancient past, when I wanted some E7's (before they came out with E6 models), I kitbashed some old Athearn blue box Alco mechanisms, by stretching the frames and rear drive shaft, and painted the drop equalizers on the Alco trucks with grimy black paint so they look more like Blomberg A-1-A trucks. I'm not sure but what I may do something similar for the E6A the "next" time the beast develops the "galloping grunts"! Also waiting for a reply from NWSL as to possible substitutes for the pointed end assemblies for the E6.
 
I would make sure its secured down, all screws/clamps...but make sure the wheels turn freely. Other issues is wear and tear on bearing surfaces widening them making open room for the axles/parts to slop around. This is where lubing is important, if you see this, new trucks/power train may be in order, or get a new engine.
 
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