proto 2000 NOT gear issue question

Over the last couple of weeks I've been replacing broken gears in an ABBA set of Frisco Proto 2000 FA / Fb's I have. After replacing all four gears in one A unit, it still wouldn't run. Light would come on, it would hum, but no movement. After playing with it, I discovered that one of the square bronze bushings was tight. So I respaced that so it would spin freely on the axle. Still won't work. Just sits there with the light on and hums. Any ideas?

Completely disassembling a mechanism isn't something I've done before, and it scares me a little, but I'm willing to try if anybody on the forum has an idea what the problem is.

Thanks,

Paul Moore

 

DC or DCC?

Do you have the shell on or off? Sometimes I try to spin the flywheel by hand to see if the mechanism is ok.

 

Shell is off...started removing screws and pulled the clear headlight piece out. Took both bottom cover pieces back off I'll try the flywheel.

In answer to your question, no, the flywheel will not turn more than about 1/16 of a turn.

Paul

 

How do you get the power trucks out?

Paul

 

There is a plastic piece that snaps over the top of the worm gear. Take a small flat blade screwdriver and pry under under it from one side and it should pop off. Take the worm gear out and be careful not to lose the bushings and gear. Truck should drop out after that. Theres a plastic piece on the back top part of the truck you need to pop off, as well as the one on the bottom to get the truck to separate into to pieces.

 

Hi Ethan,

Thanks, and I'll try that.

Paul

 

Thanks, Tom.

Paul

 

Gears have already been replaced. That's when I discovered that there was more wrong than cracked gears.

Thanks, Keith,

Paul

 

Skyraider, and all others who have added comments:
I have a goodly number of P2000 locos which have been sitting in original boxes for several years.
This has been very informative of what I am looking at down the road!
Thanks for the lessons.

 

I dont have stuff where I can get to it, or I would make a video for you. I found this one on youtube that might help incase you need a visual guide.

 

I found some pictures of the innards of a P2K FA1 on the TCS website. It's not the easiest loco to get in to:



You can see the worm gear cover between the engineer and fireman.
See more at http://tcsdcc.com/Customer_Content/Installation_Pictures/HO_Scale/Life_Like/Proto 2000 Alco FA1 WK/Proto 2000 Alco FA1 WK.html

I had some Life Like N scale locos recently that I had to clean the excess grease out of, and like Sherrel, I have several P1K and P2K locos that have been sitting in boxes for years. My experience has been that Life Like WAY overlubed them.

 

With my relatively poor soldering skills, trying to unsolder a wire that is in a locomotive is not something I am too excited about.

Paul Moore

 

The gear changing isn't too difficult once you get a system down. It's the other stuff that's a pain.

 

Another question...do the shells actually snap in place or just rest on top of the mechanism? I haven't figured out how to get the shell to actually snap onto the chassis--it's just resting on top of it, and flops around a little bit.

Paul

 

Mine don't seem to have that. There are definitely no screws to attach the body to the shell. Let me look again, but I've not seen anything like that.

Paul

 

Paul if you look at the pictures in Gary's post #14 you will see in the overhead view the 4 holes, one at each corner of the motor, that the screws go through and if you look inside the shell there are 4 posts for the screws to go into .

Robert