Question about Kato E-8 A engine

[rogergperkins]

Last week Kato offered a Labor Day special on selected ones of their E-8 engines.  I could not resist the Baltimore & Ohio one.  I count myself very lucky because I ordered one and within an hour or so looked again and they were all sold out.
The engine arrived about two days from when I ordered it.  The box contained:
one mechanism, one front truck, one rear truck, one B&O body shell and four undec body shells, plus some other assorts parts.
I did not currently own any Kato E-8 engines so I had no finished model to use as a guide for assembly.
The fun began!
I cautiously installed the trucks into the mechanism and tested that much to see if it ran.  Yes, success (I thought).  Then I puzzled over how to install the body shell and get the coupler through the pilot hole. Duh!  I had the front truck on the back of the mechanism and visa versa.     Okay, I corrected that error.
Now the engine was assembled to test again and ran fine!
I set about installing the pilot coupler, but even though I had some MTL assembled couplers in my inventory and one seemed to fit, I could not get the Kato piece provided to hold the coupler securely.
After exchanging e-mails with a helpful forum member n-scaler,  I opened one of the undec body shells to discover it had a part that was missing from my B&O shell.   I used it and now I have an functioning engine.



Now I find that the engine emits a noise like something is rubbing when I installed the body shell.  The noise was not happening when I ran the engine in reverse.  It is difficult to reproduce the conditions when the noise occurs because sometimes it starts very quiet and part way around the layout the noise starts. 
Any ideas on how to solve this problem?  Thanks.

[ljudice]

Is the noise a screeching???  If so, it's lubrication that's needed...

[NorsemanJack]

Just a shot in the dark.....  You may want to inspect the side windows/portholes "glass" pieces to ensure that they are properly installed.  They generally play an important role with Kato units in positioning the shell.  If one or both are not installed correctly, that could allow the shell to sit too low and rub on flywheels/trucks/etc.  My only other guess would be that one of the trucks is not fully snapped into place.

[AVR Mark]

You need to remove the light board and inspect the drive shafts. Spin them by moving the flywheel. Look for a "nub" or a piece of flash on one of the universal joints. I had a problem like this with a C44-9W quite a while back and even though the piece of flash on the universal joint didn't appear to be touching anything it still made a lot of noise with the shell installed. You might have to remove the motor/saddle and take the drive shafts out to see the problem. Best of luck with your troubleshooting.

Mark