No I didnt have to drill a hole, atually I ran the wire accross the treuck with a litte play and its totally out of the way and has play, theres a little bit of room under there that i guess the bolster allows a tiny bit of space, all seems to be ok, i should see about sending some pics if you want to see it.
Great Ward, did you end up drilling the hole for the wires to pass through?
Mike.
My You Tube
Your absolutely correct, they are awesome engines and I can see with a little work in no time you can have them running great. i have several protos and don’t have any issues wit them, but a few like these 2 i have put aside and assumed they were just too troublesome to bother with. I have some high end locos as well and they run no better than some of the high ens ones I have. Well, I took the trucks apart and soldered a wires to each side of the truck, was very easy to do. I have pulled the gears and cleaned them and I did see quite a bit of dirty grease that resembled peanut butter, which i cleaned up. Now I’ll put everything back together and re-grease those gears a little, I’m thinking I’ll use the LaBelle stuff, as I have some of that somewhere. i want to thank everyone for all the help and ideas!! the hobby is awesome and these forums do make it even more enjoyable. Thanks to all!!!
If your loco is stalling on switch frogs, you cna check that the pickups are working using a piece of paper. Put one truck on the paper, the other on the rails, it should run. Turn the loco around and repeat, it should still run.
If this test fails, the truck currently on the rails has a problem. You can isolate it side to side by pulling the paper out so only one side of the isolated truck is on the rails. If it runs, it's the same side on the bad truck that has a problem. If it still doesn't run, then it's the other side of the bad truck.
Most likely there is a pickup problem on one side of one truck - excess grease where the truck rubs on the frame could interrupt that side, or a loose wire to the tab side of the problem truck.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
If you use 28/30 gauge wire with thin insulation you can solder it right to the top of the metal on the top of the truck. It won't cause interference if done properly.
Easiest fastest way to add all wheel wired pick up.
Also ANY 4 axle P2K should be stripped down to components and cleaned thouroughly, assembly lube/grease gets everywhere and what isn't everywhere is now concrete in the truck assemblies..... Replace any axle gears not know to be replaced prior.
Reassemble and relube and they will last forever and pull anything you put behind them.
I see what he did. He had to mill down the bolster on the Stewart trucks. To use the proto trucks, you just need to widen the hole in the frame, (look at the orange arrow in his picture) or, as you are doing, drilling a hole for the wire.
I’ve had them apart as did my friend and the only place i see to solder a wire is to the inside of the metal plate that runs parallel to the ruck, the issue is when the truck turns it will get in the way of the wire, so ill drill a small hole in the frame and run the wire through that so it does not interfere with any moving parts.
I found this online, but this seems to be the extereme for sure and i dont know if i would get involved in that, Im not sure what he was refering to regarding cutting down the bolster, i assume the post on the trucks. I think adding the pickup wire is the best option.
http://markschutzer.com/tutorials/P2k-Stewart_Trucks.pdf
Thank you everyone for all your feed back!!!! Truly appreciated, i was just curious how everyone else delt with this. would have been nice if they had a pop in replacement truck..
I ask, because on Athearn BB, it's the opposite, the red goes to the engineers side. Just checking. Let us know where you find a place to add the extra wires. I'd like to do this on some Athearn BB's, and it doesn't seem like adding a wire to the pad on the truck, will leave room for the truck to swivel.
EDIT: Just read Ed's post. Good idea. I tapped the frame and used a screw to solder the wire to. You still need that post on the frame clean to make a good connection.
Just as Mike and Woodone mention above, the early Proto Geeps, the BL-2 and I think right up to the GP30s, use the frame for one side of the pickup.
I use a small brass tab with a hole drilled in it to screw to the frame for attaching the black decoder wire which I solder to it. I agree with Mike to be sure the bolster pin is clean. I put a little CRC 2-26 on this spot to help with continuity. In the future I'm going to try the Deoxit D100 in there, but that may be overkill. A friend gave me a sample of the 2 ml. size.
The blue arrow points to an example of the frame wire connection. Note that the Life-Like motor wires are sometimes red = minus and black = plus!
These are good runners and the electrical pick-up works just fine.
Good Luck, Ed
The engine runs smooth and no issues other than it dying on frogs which im sure is due to the one sided pickup. I have a friend who has one and he had the same issues and installed a wire to the frame as the other gentleman mentioned. I will check as im not in front of the loco now, But i wired the red to the decoder and the black to the decoder based on the decoder diagram. The red wire was not coming from the trucks it was coming from the frame. normally you would have 2 black wires and 2 red wires coming from the trucks.
I have an old GP18 in pieces right now. I just looked at it. It's the same power pick-up as Athearn BB, only on Athearn, the metal tab that comes up is on the engineer's side, and the frame pick-up is on the firemans side.
You might want to make sure no grease, oil, or crude is interupting the frame pick-up, and that spot on the truck is clean, along with the pin on the frame, of course by adding the additional pic-up wires, that shouldn't matter.
So, when you installed the decoder, did you run the red wire to the engineers side, and the black, to the frame, on the firemans side? Just wondering, as I want to put a decoder in mine eventually.
I don't have any GP-18's, my railroad never had them, but I do have a bunch of GP-7's and mine are pretty much dead-on reliable even without bothering to power my frogs. One had cracked gears, the others I just put the Athearn gears in when I had them apart to install decoders so I didn't have to worry about it. About the only time they die is on the club layout where the connector sections between modules is close to the loco wheelbase, then is when it is important that all trains have at least 2 powered units because one will stop and the other will push it past the dead track, only to then be pulled by the lead unit. Newer modules have done away with the fitter sections so it's only an issue on the older ones, and not a loco problem - short bits of sectional track with less than ideal joiners connecting it to the powered track to either side are the problem.
Thanks, thats exactly what it appears to be. I assumed i could do that, ill have to drill a hole in the frame so the wire does not get in the way of the motor or drive , but that should not be a big deal. Im surprised with all of these type of older locos that no one has had issues with these before. The engine itself is very nice looking and I had hopes to get them runnig smooth, that seems to be the solution. thanks again!
I think that you will find that trucks have a metal tab that sticks up for one rail and for the other rail it uses the frame for fht eother rail- There is a metal plate on the trucks that have a hole in them, this hole lides over a pin on the frame to make contact for the other rail- Solder a wire to the plate on both trucks to replace the frame contact, hook your decoder to the two wires on each truck. Some Athearns were made this way too. The pin in the hole does not make good contact!
Each truck has one black wire soldered to a metal tab that's attached to the truck for pickup. The opposite side trucks have no metal tab and there is no wire soldered to them, I’ve seen this in Proto’s before. There is a screw in the body that is used for the other pickup. I assume under the one truck the frame (weight) is attached electrically somehow to the other track and that's how it picks up its second connection. If I remove the weight and I see a metal tab that’s under the bolster, so maybe that’s how it picks up the second connection. All other newer locomotives ive seen have black and red wires on both trucks, not these.
https://www.google.com/search?q=Proto+2000+GP9&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiN7rbn5P7SAhUnh1QKHUI4CewQ_AUIBygC&biw=1280&bih=900#tbm=isch&q=Proto+2000+phase+III+GP9&*&imgrc=UH37w7jNPcYvtM:&spf=441
It sounds like these were not purchased new and someone has been altering the pickup process. AFAIK, all protos use wires for pickup and even place tape on the underside of the motor to prevent accidental pickup from the frame, unlike older Athearn locos that use a metal clip under the loco that touches the frame.
- Douglas
Hi , there pretty old, i have to check the GP 7 its a blue box version, the GP18 (older) is a gold box version, both have a screw in the metal frame that acts as the second pickup and one black wire for front and back trucks.
My Proto geeps all have pickups on all drive wheels? How old are yours that they don't?
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Hi Model Fellow Model Railroaders,
I have a few Proto 2000 one, a GP7 and the other a GP18. I know they are old and it would easier to just replace them entirely, but they are great looking engines and do run well, the issue I ran into was the obvious gear issues on one i replaced, that’s working, however I do have issues going over unpowered frogs due to the lack of pickup through he frame. I am thinking about juts drilling a small hole in the bottom frame and adding a pickup wire to the other track side and attaching that to the decoder, probably the easiest way, just dot know if anyone has done this and if it was effective,. the other thing i though of was replacing the trucks entirely with something newer, but the only article i found was one that was done by Mark Schutzer. That involved using Stewart trucks and some milling.
I also added a tsunami decoder w /sound and the smaller capacitor that comes with it, I guess I could try to squeeze in a keep alive but there’s not a ton of room in there, I also thought about using a larger capacitor like a 1000 UF and not adding the additional truck wires, but I don’t think that would be enough to run the loco over the frogs. Yes I could power all my frogs, the ones on tortoises are already powered, but that could become quite costly. Personally I think just adding another pickup would be the easiest, I will have to drill a small hole in the frame to accommodate this.
Anyone have any experience with these older protos and their pickup issues? Appreciate the info anyone has.
Thanks again!!
Ward