I have an older pair of Williams GG1's (includes dummy) - I posted earlier about issues with them shorting on K-Line O27 42" switches - After spending a bunch of time closely looking at the switches, taking them apart, etc... I think I found the issue - The front on the truck below the coupler is dragging / resting on the track - It is metal - When it crosses the switch I am getting the short and all the problems - I am not sure the front wheels are even spinning on the track
I checked the side of the Williams box - It states the GG's are for O31 track - I have them on O27 with 42" curves - Is using the O27 track causing the issue? or are the trucks somehow adjustable - It does not look like they are..
Did a nice job of scraping up the front of the truck but you can't see it until you pick the engine up
Any tips / ideas - Do I need to start over and go to O31?
trainsandmusic wrote: O27 profile is fine, heck I have run GG1s on 027radi. I have run Willia;s GG1s on O guage and Super-O and have the problem you describe. I put a piece of electrical tape on the bottom and it works like a charm.
Electrical tape as already noted or shim the area that's hanging low. The side frames on William's locos are held on by screws. I think CNW1995 had a similar issue and he used the electrical tape solution successfully.
Jim
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
Heeda, many train companies state a certain track type due to clearances of the switch box housing. Others, as in the case of MTH do not make 027 track. So there's been a tendency for them to state minimum curve as 031, even though many of those products actually do clear the oversized Lionel 027 switchbox housing.
Trainsandmusic beat me to the punch on what to do. It's often a good idea when having a problem with a loco on a section of track or a switch to troubleshoot all possibilities. The other day I was running a K-Line Alco FA. And for some reason the loco was shorting a little bit going over one switch. I was perplexed since no other loco like this one does this. Then as I was watching the train, I realized on one of my "peek-a-boo" box cars (when the door was sprung open), the plunger beneath the car was making contact with another switch just as the Alco was hitting the other switch.
Like trainsandmusic, I made an insulator for the bottom of that plunger plate out of a self-sticking mailing label, which I then could easily trim to a round shape with a razor blade. Problem gone.
Another thought: on some locos the space or clearance between the roller pickup and the bottom of the loco/truck chassis is very tight and uneven track (UC tracks, switches) can cause a short. I had this problem with my greatly revamped Lionel Industrial Switchers. The space beneath is tight and the roller pickups can actually make contact with the wheel axles. So I made a long strip insulator out of either mylar or cardboard, and I slip that into the loco to fit below the axles between the axle and the place where the rolller pickups where hitting. That solved that problem from then on.
In some cases, I've popped out the snap-in roller pickup and replaced it with the MPC slide shoe version of the same pickup. The MPC slide shoe doesn't have the thickness of the normal roller, and that can make a difference. The MPC slide shoe is also slightly longer than the snap in roller. I used the snap in slide pickups on my rebuilt RMT BEEP (which has a K-Line ALco motor truck assembly in it now) and this helped eliminate some hesitation on switches due to the short length of the Alco motor truck chassis.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month