josephbw Every older Life Like engine that I have, I have had to replace the gears in the truck with Athearn gears. It's not a huge PITA, but if your not careful you can break things. I bought one fairly new RS2 at a train show (had never been out of the box), I had to replace every truck gear, then the motor had issues, and I finally wound up removing the motor and the drive gears on the trucks and making it a dummy. That was the last time I bought a Life Like. Your mileage may vary, hopefully. Joe
Every older Life Like engine that I have, I have had to replace the gears in the truck with Athearn gears. It's not a huge PITA, but if your not careful you can break things. I bought one fairly new RS2 at a train show (had never been out of the box), I had to replace every truck gear, then the motor had issues, and I finally wound up removing the motor and the drive gears on the trucks and making it a dummy. That was the last time I bought a Life Like.
Your mileage may vary, hopefully.
Joe
Joe,
It's been something like a decade since Life-Like produced locos. The grease that was used tended to harden over time. The plastic gear molding tended to self-destruct anyway just sitting in the box, as the internal stresses released via the craking of the gear.
As you noted, the fix is an easy one, just get some Athearn part #60024. Says they are for an SD-40 on my old package, but it's a direct replacement for the old L-L part. Take apart, put together and clean that old grease out and replace with some LaBelle grease. Easy-peasy.
And it usually is just the gears on the 2-axle trucked units. The C-C ones tend to be good as anything 10 years or more can be.
khierI have two identical LL Alco PA bought second hand. Both are still DC and run very nice, BUT indvidually. Once I put the two on the track and raise the voltage, one moves while the other stay there like a dead body. Apparently the drive in one of them is heavier than the other. Did anyone encounter this? Is it an easy remedy that involves just cleaning and lubrication?
Walid,
P2K PAs were produced with two different motors. The first was a high amp draw unit and could cause problem with many DCC decoders if they didn't have a high enough amp rating to handle it. The later runs had a much imporved motor with much reduced amp draw.
It dounds to me like you have one PA from each run. The one that's reluctant to run probably has the high-amp motor. Also check the grease in the truck gears to see it hasn't hardened due to age. You can either convert it to a better motor or get a high-am draw rated DCC decoder and make the adjustment through CVs.
BTW, the easiest way to a new motor is to buy a later run PA and swap the whole chassis around. The shell fits either chassis.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
khier Since the discussion drifted in the drive mechanism direction (which is not bad BTW), I will hijack my own post with the following question. I have two identical LL Alco PA bought second hand. Both are still DC and run very nice, BUT indvidually. Once I put the two on the track and raise the voltage, one moves while the other stay there like a dead body. Apparently the drive in one of them is heavier than the other. Did anyone encounter this? Is it an easy remedy that involves just cleaning and lubrication? Regards Walid
Since the discussion drifted in the drive mechanism direction (which is not bad BTW), I will hijack my own post with the following question. I have two identical LL Alco PA bought second hand. Both are still DC and run very nice, BUT indvidually. Once I put the two on the track and raise the voltage, one moves while the other stay there like a dead body. Apparently the drive in one of them is heavier than the other. Did anyone encounter this? Is it an easy remedy that involves just cleaning and lubrication?
Regards
Walid
BigDaddy Ken Patterson was doing advertising photography for Walthers when they took over the LL line. He asked them what they were going to do about the gear problem and was met with blank stares. They had no idea.
Ken Patterson was doing advertising photography for Walthers when they took over the LL line. He asked them what they were going to do about the gear problem and was met with blank stares. They had no idea.
Well they must have gotten the idea pretty quickly because they corrected the problem after acquiring the line. They currently offer the replacement wheel/axle sets for GPs, BL2, FA and some other LifeLikeP2K engines
https://www.walthers.com/replacement-geared-driver-assembly-diesel-wheelset-pkg-2-for-early-proto-2000-r-bl-fa-gp7-9-18-20-30-60-proto-1000-tm-f3
For a time they similarly offered replacement wheel/axles for the E units but while listed in their catalog they are not currently available.
Walthers initally offered these replacement wheel/axle sets free for the defective LifeLike P2K originals. Any such engine is now old enough that the free offer no longer stands. As others have pointed out, since LifeLike was using a clone of Athearn, Athearn parts also work.
If you have an old LifeLike P2K engine you also presumably know about the gunked up excess lubrication issue that needs correcting.
Dave Nelson
Henry
COB Potomac & Northern
Shenandoah Valley
Generally Walthers Proto engines based on previous Life-Like Proto engines aren't exactly straight "reissues". The LL Proto engines did not have DCC plugs for example, so have to be hard-wired. Also, the Walthers versions now usually have been set up to easily convert to sound, with a space for a speaker. For example, my fairly recent Walthers / Proto E-7 DC engine came with an 8-pin DCC receptacle and a receptacle behind the cab for a 1" speaker. My earlier LL E-units had to be hard-wired, and didn't have a space set aside for a speaker (although there's plenty of room inside to add one.)
Some of the older LL engines didn't run as well as others - I think LL used different manufactures to make differnt engines, so they aren't the same. The E-units and SD-7/9s were good, while many of the LL GP-7/9s had problems with cracked gears and other issues. Walthers has upgraded the problem ones with newer / better motors and gears so they now all run well across the board.
Randy, thanks for the reply. However, it did not make me smarter (sorry if it sounds rude). My problem is to estimate the LL product in question with respect to the current Walthers "allegedly" over taken LL ones.
For example: Walthers will bring this summer Alco PA A/B units in the main line program. Should I presume they are a new release of the older LL P2K? There will be also F7 in the same line, are they the older ones while the Proto F7 are upgraded/reworked version?
You see, if I have an answer I can better decide whether to wait for the new release or seek older LL stuff, and whether the new releases are worth the price or not.
Not exactly. Walther's had a Trainline line before the bought Life Like - I have a couple of FA's, they are the old Train Miniature shells on an improved chassis. The Trainline X29 box car is also the old Train Miniature.
When looking on ebay, LL train set level stuff should be pretty obvious, with truck mounted couplers. They may have gotten knuckle couplers at the end but most likely they are all X2f couplers. P1K and P2K, there was no product overlap, so what the loco is a model of will tell you which one it is. Though either is quite good, so it doesn't really matter.
Walthers has redone some of the P2K and P1K locos, but they've also introduced new ones under their various lines.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Dear All,
What became of the Proto 1000, Proto 2000 and regular LL product after Walthers took over? Are they respectively the Main Line, Proto, and Train Line series? Should I presume products of these lines are nothing but a new release of older Proto 1000/2000? The problem arises always when I try to rate an older Life Like on Ebay.