Hello All
MY USAT NW2 is having a power pickup problem. The front truck is OK but the rear is not picking up any power either from the sliders or the wheels. All 8 wheels turn when power is applied to the front truck. I imagine I have either a loose or a burned out wire from the rear pickups but where to start looking for it? I once had a similar problem after a bad derailment with my GP38 where it crossed the track powered rails adn fried a wire. It looked cool with the smoke pouring out of it but to fix I had to tear it all down to get to the guts. On the NW2 it too derailed but I didn’t get a cloud of smoke.
I pulled the bottom off the offending truck and didn’t see any troubles so… What do you think am I going to have to tear it all down or maybe someone out there in trainland knows of an easier not as involved fix.
If it does require a complete teardown it will have to wait. On the bright side it would be a good time to do the custom paint job I’m thinking about.
Thanks
Todd
Hi Todd -
You’ll probably have to remove at least the shell to get at the wiring so you can troubleshoot further. The trouble might be in the truck, but until you can get to teh wiring in the shell it’s hard to pin-point.
I agree with Jon, since you lost the sliders and the wheel pickups. You could use a voltmeter to see if only one side is affected, but I’ll bet it’s inside the shell as Jon stated. They aren’t too hard to open up: http://www.elmassian.com/trains-mainmenu-27/motive-power-mods-aamp-tips-mainmenu-35/usat-motive-power-mainmenu-36/nw-2-mainmenu-37 (be sure to read my directions)
(http://www.elmassian.com/images/stories/motivepower/USAT/nw2/nw2_screws.jpg)
Greg