enginear joe Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 Does anyone have a picture(s) of the inside of Lionel's motor blocks? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted February 27, 2014 Share Posted February 27, 2014 The GP20 uses a 2 motor drive but the GP9 uses a single motor with a o-ring going from the powered axle to the dead one. Why they did that is beyond me as they're both basically the same engine Here's the GP20 drive.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enginear joe Posted February 28, 2014 Author Share Posted February 28, 2014 Wow, that's interesting to me. I thought they were all horizontal drives. A rubber O ring to drive a second axle.....Hmmm. I guess they didn't like the K-line version? Some kind of cam to signal or trip some feature?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Oh, the cam/ microswitch is what tells the prime mover sounds to ramp up or down as the RailSounds are pre-TMCC era. The later engines are TMCC ready as they're setup to plug in all components...but I've never seen one of those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 Here's the Lionel GP7/ 9 single motor drive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enginear joe Posted December 20, 2017 Author Share Posted December 20, 2017 It seems like Lionel went thru a progression of designs for their diesels trucks. I can't keep track of which ones have which trucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 The biggest downfall of the Lionel steam & diesel drives from that era is the use of aluminum wheels. Those things will corrode while you're using them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enginear joe Posted December 20, 2017 Author Share Posted December 20, 2017 That is ridiculous. Probably why they went to selling all battery/plastic stuff in G? What other corners can you cut? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
du-bousquetaire Posted January 3, 2018 Share Posted January 3, 2018 I would say that the reason why they dropped the second motor and put a O ring drive instead is because of the very high current draw on the motor. The engine with four motors draws anywhere between 3 and 4 amps which is huge. On my GP7 I replaced the wheels with ones obtained from NWSL and they improved the current pick up considerably, as well as the scale aspect of the trucks. However the amps these motors draw means that to run smoothly at slow speed for a certain amount of time I have to 1° clean the track with the LGB Bright boy , 2° clean the wheels that get oxidised through arcing, and 3° run only in very dry weather. But the loco has real nice slow speed and with these provisions will run reliably at slow speeds for about a week before it needs another wheel cleaning. Obviously pick up shoes could make a very big diference. However I find that affordable 1/32 early diesels not being too numerous on the market, it was definitly a great buy. Mine cost me $50 bucks! it is the period limit for me as I model PRR up to 1957 when they scrapped the last steam locos. So it is the most modern unit on my system. On this photo you can see part of my coal drag with the new coal loads which I described in the forum on Piko 2 bay hoppers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zachdog Posted September 19, 2019 Share Posted September 19, 2019 I have a Lionel GP20 and I’ve noticed the aluminum wheels are not very good quality. Are there suitable replacements from NWSL or other vendors? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chuck Posted September 19, 2019 Share Posted September 19, 2019 You know after tinkering with the old Lionel large scale for years, I think the wheels they used were really a sintered iron product...still a crappy design esp. when used in a power pickup situation. You'll have to search the NWSL website. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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