Intermountain Cab Forward ? Oil yes or no

[Flagler]

The jury is out for me still about this engine. The instructions that came with the engine state to apply oil to several locations.
How do you feel about doing this.I have heard different opinions on this.

[superturbine]

Definately oil it.  This is not like the GS4 which is pre-oiled and had a stalling problem.  This engine has no oil in stated locations from the mfg of oil needed. 

[victor miranda]

oil it.

Kato recommends vasiline for the GS4.
intermountain says oil for the side rods.
I doubt it much matters which.

the fact is that the traction tire of one engine group
is powered by the siderods exclusively.
that set has to be oiled and oiled routinely
if you want it to survive in service.

victor

[Flagler]

Thanks guys.I will oil the engine before I run it any more.I ran it for a little bit to tst it like the instructions said to do.
This engine  came factory DCC/sound installed.It does not appear to have that many contact points.The overall top end speed is slower then most engines.I wish it would go a little faster any observations on your end.

[superturbine]

Normal...the proto had a low top speed.  As you break it in it will speed up a little.

[Flagler]

I am liking the engine more each time I run it. It could do better with current pick up.It finds any dirt on the track.I will have to keep the track cleaner.It pulls good so far with more tests to come. It has pulled 25 single dome Tankers from Microtrains up a straight 2% grade.

[Nato]

              I oiled my first cab forwards from the original run I did have part of the drive rod assembly come apart on one locomotive,sent it back to Intermountain and it was repaired under warantee.The first thing I did with original locomotives and my two new sound equiped ones was to put them on the track and apply power to make sure they did run forward and backward.Then they were oiled with La Belle 107 oil since I did not have 108 specified in the directions. Nate Goodman (Nato). Salt Lake ,Utah.

[Robbman]

It's an AC-12... of course you should put oil in it... it's proto

[superturbine]

Do you have a tsunami 750  sound decoder in the engine that you installed?  In my opinion, the tsu decoder has great sound but does have a tendency to shut on/off especially in the cab forward.  The decoder does pull a lot of power so any flaws in track or power pick up will be revealed.  I would pull the sound decoder out and see how it runs with a regular decoder.  It is very likely..... It will run much better! 

[Flagler]

Thanks again super T,Yes its a factory installed Tsunami . You described my experience well. I really like the sound. I think I need to clean the wheels on the engine. If I pull the decoder out what do I put in its place?

[Flagler]

I Talked to someone that has knowledge of Tsunami sound decoders. We have determined that my problem is not with the decoder
but with electrical pickup and its not Dirty Track. I am having  ever increasing positive running performance,less stalls as the engine is run. Maybe a break in period helps all the wipers work better.

[Flagler]

The Gremlins returned,The engine will be returned also,I will follow with any thing I learn.I really like the sound aspect on my layout.
My other engines are dull & borring now without sound.What monster have I created, $$$$$$$$$$$,

[WBRRVP]

Sorry to kick up an older post but wanted to provide a little insight I found with my ACs.

As with the previous runs IM used wheels on the tender, leading, and trailing trucks with huge flanges. I found that replacing these with Fox Valley wheels of the appropriate size (36" on tender and trailing, 33" on pilot iirc) made a vast improvement in the running quality including issues with pickup as the tender can provide a lot of the pickup as long as the wheels can rest on the track and not bounce off the ties 

Jerry VanThomme
www.washingtonbeltrr.com

[Mike Madonna]

Jerry,

Thanks for bringing this point back up, good call. Do you recall what the proper axle widths were? Something I'll have to move up towards the top of the "to do" list!

- Mike

[peteski]

After the first run was released, I described (with photos) retrofitting AC-12 with FVM wheels (on the Atlas forum which is currently down so I can't link to that thread).  I also had an email and a phone exchanges with Richard Frazier from IM about them using yellow (not white) LEDs and those over sized flanges on non-driven wheels.  Funny thing is that the driver flange depth is fine!  It is odd that they would design a model which uses 2 different flange sizes.

Richard listened to my comments and he mentioned that as far as the LED color goes, IM engineers thought that yellow would be better than a bluish white.  I then told him that there are warm white LEDs available and even the bluish white LEDs can be tinted to give off a warmer color. But yellow LEDs will always be yellow. They cannot be tinted to be "whiter".

Next, when we discussed the flange depth, he said that I was the 1st person who mentioned that.

It appears that they did change their LEDs to white (bravo) but they left the flange dept the same, even on the current (3rd?) run.  I'm sure that I didn't have a direct influence on their decision to change the LED color (other modelers probably contacted them about that too).  But it I suspect that not enough people contacted them about the flange depth for them to change it.  So they left it as-is.