Chad. I have experienced no traction effort issue after removing the small weight over the gear box. The weight I removed was less than an ounce and the lokey will pull 20 cars up our club's steepest mainline grade which is 3%.
Very good troubleshootng & fix!With the weight removed, have you noticed any traction/pulling differences?I ask because the non-sound ones have a full weight where the box speaker would go, & some folks say the sound ones are too light & do not offer real good pulling power.
Thanks agian for the tip, to check those leads!
Say gents, just wanted to toss something out there that I recently experienced with my Athearn Genesis GP9. Whilst the lokey "taxied" in to the club's staging yard with its train, it suddenly shorted out, BAM!!
I took her home hoping the decoder, a Digitrax DH165, didn't short out. Testing on the decoder and lokey light board found no short circuits. Hmmmmm.
Well, I pulled the light board and looked at the wires from the trucks to the board and found the front trucks wires had been glued together by the assembler. Interesting and glue can melt the wire insulation. After separating the wires, the short was done gone!!
Sooooo, shrink tubing was placed around the truck wires all the way to the light board and the lokey reassembled. Whilst things were apart, I removed the small weight over the rear truck to create a bit more space for the decoder and she now runs flawlessly.
Just thought I would pass that along in case anyone else has experienced a similar short with their Genesis lokeys.