I looked at the 2055 family of locos on my shelf I found the collectors both ways. In looking at the service manual I see the 1954 edition has the 224E collector and the 1959 edition has the 2055 collector. Have to see a picture of the loco to know which one is correct. As to Just Trains source of information, Dennis Waldron, the owner, and his father, ran a Lionel owned service station in NJ to servise the NYC department stores. I believe were both Lionel employees. When Lionel decided to close the service station Dennis bought it and still runs it. Just Trains has the most complete set of Lionel service documentation anywhere. I believe that many of the parts he sells was the factories inventory, which he purchased when it was closed and moved to Maryland. Much of the documentarion is from the same source.
Both Olsen's service literature and Greenberg's repair manual for the 2055 loco refer you to the 2035 loco service literature, as the 2055 loco uses the 2035-100 motor. The collector shoe listed in both publications is the 224E-90. Justtrains.com lists the 224E-90 as the Collector Assembly for the 2035.
None of the service literature I reference lists the 2055-115 Collector Assembly for any of these locomotives, yet Justtrains.com lists it for the 2055 locomotive. I wonder where they got their information from for this part?
Larry
Here is a photo of the 2055 collector. Note that there are no tabs on it.
https://store.justtrains.com/2055-115-Collector-Assembly_p_554.html
Here is the Collector Shoe Plate. It has tabs to hold it in place in the motor frame. You need a frame spreading tool to spread the frame to remove the old plate, and replace the new plate without damaging the tabs. The tool is #ST-350-FST, available from The Train Tender, as is the Shoe Plate.
Take a close look at your 2055. I do not believe that the 2055 has tabs on the collector backing plate. I believe that the aluminum frame is bent inward to retain the collector plate.
this is a good thread. I have the same dilema on a 2055 steamer. the e unit would stick when the engine warmed up from normal running it turns out the e unit was too tight of a fit in the frame cavity. the collector wire broke off but that should not be hard fitting in a new roller assembly. ill follow the advise on most of this thread but wont use a spreader as that can cause more problems. with the collector plate out ill use a small sharp strong pair of side cutters and cut one side of the slits in the frame bend out that slit shoehorn the plate in place and use a small strip of high quality 3M double face tape that will sit on the topside of the plate bend the tabs over and super glue at the bottom edge of the plate to the frame.
Mike,
Thanks for the kind words. I, too, hope I didn't scare him; but I'll admit to having scared myself! Thanks for putting things in perspective.
Wolverine,
Nice detailed procedure, but I hope you didn't scare this guy. I've done a couple of times and most recently with a 2026 with fiber plate and it wasn't that bad. I do it pretty similiar to how you do.
I do know that the plate on his loco is made of some kind of plastic and not fiber so I'm wondering if re-installation will be a little easier. It's easy to crush the tabs on a fiber plate.
Mike S.
motorcar,
May I suggest that when you get your replacement part you take time to look it over and inspect the power wire, if any, replacing it if necessary. I generally use # 20 Superflex wire. Others may offer other choices. You need that wire firmly soldered in place prior to installation of the fiber part with the rollers.
If I understand it, when the loco was assembled originally, the fiber portion of the pick-up roller assembly, which has four "tabs" sticking out the sides about a sixteenth of an inch, was "trapped" in the matching slots of the motor housing. during assembly. That is, the side panels of the motor were brought over the tabs and then the whole assembly locked together. You cannot replicate that process, and really forcing it will surely damage the motor. Repositioning the fiber piece between the metal sides of the motor is a bear, because there obviously isn't sufficient space between the sides of the motor to slide it in. (If there were, it would simply fall out again.) Nor can you bend the motor sides out of the way more than about 1/32 or an inch without damaging the motor.
The technique involves a little reshaping and a very little bending, with the bending done primarily by the fiber piece itself; but first the fiber piece must be modified.
If you can visualize this, it is something like trying to replace a roll of toilet tissue where the wooden roller is one piece and has no internal cavity or internal spring. With such a roller, there would be no way to compress the springy end for insertion; i.e., no way to get the wooden roller into the paper holder. With the loco pickup roller assembly it is almost as impossible, but there is a technique that sometimes works.
The fit of the tabs of the fiber piece into the slots in the motor is quite tight, and the last thing you want to do is to "upset" (bugger, rough up, or expand) the edges of the new tabs. The good news is that there should be a little give (very little) in the sides of the motor, such that you may be able to "shoehorn" the fiber piece into place. To maximize your chances of success, you may have to reduce the dimensions of at least two and better all four tabs in all directions, or at least those on one side. Trying to force the fiber piece in without modification is almost certainly doomed to fail.
The trick is to make it so the tabs really "want" to slip into the slots. The resulting fit will not be as tight as when Lionel originally built it, but it may be good enough; and once you get it in place, you can always tighten it up with a bit of epoxy or the like. But there is one essential "trick."
Once you have the tabs trimmed short enough so that are close* to fitting in between the side walls of the motor, you need to file a taper on the under-side of both tabs to create a kind of shoehorn effect. The loco is lying upside down, so the "underside" of the fiber tabs will eventually be the top, when the loco is righted once more. It would be helpful to have 4 hands for this. (For those of you with carpentry experience, this taper is akin to the "relief" that must be beveled onto the leading edge of a door in order to get it to close properly."
With the filing properly done, you then begin to insert the two tabs on one side as best you can, without forcing anything. Then you attempt to spread the motor panels just a little, and try to "shoehorn "the fiber piece down into position so that the tabs on one side continue into their slots, and the other two slide down the inside of the opposite metal piece and eventually pop into their slots. You are likely to get only get one chance at this, and if the slight reshaping of the tabs wasn't done right, if will be a bad day in Black Rock. At least that is the method I was taught. Someone else may have another method, or could at least provide step-by-step pics or drawings. This is the devil to try to explain. Perhaps someone knows of a video which illustrates this process.
A sequence of pictures would be worth a zillion words here, but I can't provide it. Soooooo, if I were you I would likely take the new part and the loco to an authorized service center and let an experienced technician install it for you.
* I can't define "close" obviously you have to leave enough of the tabs undisturbed so that the fiber piece will stay put.
Okay, checked Jeff kane's site. He has one, limited supply which means it's probably original. $10.50. Give him a call.
Okay, you should be able to get one of these. You can try Jeff Kane and the tRain tender ( http://www.ttender.com/) for a repro(don't know if they make one or not) or see if he as an original. Like I said, ebay will have them sooner or later. I just checked and the only one I see now is for a smaller steam engine. You'll have to keep checking but there will be one. It's the same assembly that's on the 2045/56, and others.
You might have to slightly file the plastic tabs on one side of the assembly and then place one side's tabs in the motor frame and carefully lever the other side in using a small screwdriver. The filing of the tabs should make it easier to lever but don't go to hard with the screwdriver because your aluminum motor frame if it's magnetraction, and I believe it is, could bend.
HOpe this helps,
This should be what the undeside of your loco looks like. There is no pickup shoe on this loco, but there is a collector roller assembly. If it came out of the motor frame, you should be able to put it back using a small screwdriver as a lever. Pretty hard to break this collector assembly, but if you did you should be able to find a replacement on ebay.
You might have to be a bit more specific though for more help here.
i did a bad thing. i was working on the e unit and instead of unsoldering the wire to the pick up at the e unit i thought i could remove it from the pick up shoe so i tried to remove the shoe and broke it. the part number for the shoe is 224E-90 but will it look like the old one. and how do i get it back in?
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