Hi, I have a problem that I can´t solve. I bought a P2K GP18 second hand and it was already equipped with a decoder (Lenz 130), it worked fine but the dreaded cracked gear had obviously happened sometime in the past and it was also prone to derail due to the wheels altering gauge! I had some good wheelsets with gears at home so I decided to swap them, and so I did. Then the darned thing wouldn´t work!!! I checked all connections and they looked okay and when I put it on the layout it tripped the circuit breaker, so I knew I had a short somewhere. I checked with my Multimeter and found that it was indeed a short but I couldn´t find where it was. To eliminate things I decided to make the chassie "dead", I soldered feeder wires to each side of the boogies and glued plastic shims to isolate the pivot-point. but it still shorted! Now I don´t know how to proceed, is it a case for the bin, or should I give it another try?
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Since the only thing you changed was replacing the wheelsets - check those. There's supposed to be a center ridge in the plactic gear to keep the backs of the stub axles from touching one another - which would be a dead short across the track. If you isolated the loco chassis from the track, the only other place it can be is the wheels.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
thats my guess;had a similar problem on a p2k alco ,pushed the axels two far in to new gear(athern) and it was dead I mean a dead short ....J.W
Thanks for the help! I checked the gauge first and it was correct, and when using the MM it was indeed a short across the axles! I filed 1 mm off the axles and; Presto, it works!