Purchased used.At first would not run at all.
Wheels had never been cleaned by the look .A lot of debris removed,oiled,,now runs at speed.When crossing points at low speed,loco stalls over plastic isolatior area .All high spots have been removed Any thoughts chaps? It can be a jerky runner .......

I have the exact same issue with a little V5 diesel loco. Took everything apart, cleaned it all and put it all together again and the issue persisted, no change at all I'll follow this thread to see if anyone comes up with anything that helps

A few points (ha-ha!) worthy of mention here:

• It sounds to me like only one bogie is picking up. If you have a multi-meter you can check continuity directly or otherwise you can lower the loco on the track one bogie at a time to check both are picking up.

• For wheel cleaning I turn the lock upside down (I have made a service cradle by hollowing out a piece of foam) and apply power via a short length of track wired to a controller. With power applied to one set of wheels I clean the remaining wheels with WD-40 contact cleaner applied to a micro-brush. As Carim says, it's important to clean the backs of the wheels and also the edge of the flanges.

• The bronze wipers that contact the backs or the wheels can also become dirty do I sometimes lean these by soaking a small piece of paper in contact cleaner and sliding it between pick-up wiper and the back of the wheel. Be very careful, though, as you can easily bend the finger making matters worse. If this happens you don't really have much choice but to disassemble the bogie and re-tension the wipers.

• If you look carefully you can see the frog area of the points has tiny metal contacts that mate with the edges of the wheel flanges so make sure these are clean, too. There are also bronze contacts to carry power to the point blades and these can occasionally stop making contact leaving the entire point blade without power. So if you have your multi-meter out you might want to check that, too.

• Finally, if you remove the bogies (be careful not to swap them over) you'll see two wipers on the upper side of the bogies which contact onto two areas on the underside of the locomotive frame. Again check these are all clean and, if necessary, re-tension the wipers.

Hope that's of some help - this type of problems is very solvable but may require some persistence and careful cleaning.

Good luck!


Chris

The reason I prefer to use a short length of track is that you can then apply power one-handed leaving the other hand free to clean.

Hopefully someone will find that useful!

Cheers


Chris

Hello hope all is well.

This brings up a point I would like to make about purchasing older locomotives.

Keep in mind for your next purchase. There are times when the seller really knows very little about what they are listing, even dealers whose specialty is HO likely know very little about Z scale. If you are lucky, there may be a statement which says it works, but even with this statement, seeing is believing. I always assume the worst when making these purchases. When I get something like this, I examine it closely to see if there is an obvious flaw which was not disclosed. A broken shell or missing buffer are expensive to replace. Next I remove the shell to examine the condition of the motor and gears. I Check the secondary gears to see if they are dry, or have debris hanging on them. Then I lightly lube it and try it on the track to see if it responds. If it is loud when operating, or not smooth in operation, it needs work.

At this point, I completely disassemble the entire thing. I use a sonic cleaner and I would suggest considering this. I reassemble and add new brushes, and finally lube it and see if it works well. Many times this works. If you skip these steps you might find your locomotive has failed.

Many of these locomotives are very old, sometimes over 50 years old. Often they are not stored correctly and the oils harden around the gears. Expect to clean these to get them to work as designed. Older items may seem cheap to purchase, but may have issues and the parts are more difficult to locate. Adding the price of parts, it might have been cheaper to purchase a new locomotive. Consider purchasing new items if you don’t want to buy someone else’s problem.

There are some real gems out there, prices might be high right now, put these can be great additions to your collection but might need a bit of work to get them functional again.

Take good care.

Dwight