Just when you think it will be a good night to run trains...... Hi, Well I took one of the Kato GS-4's for a spin tonight pulling a six pack of Daylight cars. It was about the 2nd time I ran this particular locomotive. Well to make a long story short, after running a couple of laps on my 22x94 test track in forward, I decided to run it in reverse for a little bit. A lap or so later, the locomotive just seized up. Now if I change the direction to forward, the lights are on but no motor function. Has this been anyone else's experience? Is there something I should try before sending the unit back to Kato? Thanks! And I hope your New Years Eve is off to better start than mine!
Oh, to make it worse, my other GS-4 does the same thing.:thumbs_down: So both will go back to Kato on Monday
That's a good check. Were any of the others steamers? The reason I ask is that I wonder if your power-pack has some sort of pulsing or whatever that is causing the side-rods to bind. It's kind of far-fetched, I guess, but since I have not heard of any other GS-4's doing this and here you have two in one evening I am starting to wonder if there might be something there. I have had a good experience with Kato service. I don't think you will be disappointed.
It's a long shot, but this happened to my GS4, I checked everything and was about to pull it apart when I found a coupler trip pin that had somehow been picked up from the track somewhere and wedged between a driver and the frame. I pulled it out and the GS4 ran as good as ever.
I have this loco too and I've only been able to have it go backwards comfortably once - after keeping it on straight track. Otherwise, it binds and it looks like it's because the second set of drivers is allowed to "pop-up" during operation. I did run into one instance where the lights were on but no motor was home; but, this was because I had removed and re-inserted the pcb from the tender (the dummy board for the EM13 DCC). Somehow the upper drawbar was misaligned from my re-assembly and once aligned, she started running again.
I've had the same type of issue with one of my GS-4s. The locomotive moved forward with a tapping sound and would lock up going in reverse. Found that the 2nd driver would move up and down in its bearing slot and the slap the rails with the driver, when in reverse, it would lift the driver and bind the mechanism. try to move the drivers to see if there is any binding to include side to side. I had to shim the 2nd driver to prevent it from lifting up, but there hasn't been any more problems.
Happy New Year everyone! Steamdonkey74 - Yes I ran a few Mikados and a Hallmark 2-10-4 with no problems. I even ran a few Light Mountains and an S2 with no issues. Westfalen - I did check the mechanisms, and there was no foreign object binding the mechanism. Before I even loaded the GS-4 on to the track, I had already ran a string of the Aztec track cleaning cars for the better part of an hour. mucols - Well these were right out of the box with just a little run time. I have not touched the tenders yet. I was going to be installing DCC in them this weekend, so I wanted to run them a while and break them in a bit before I did that. SPsteam - They never made any tapping sounds going forward in my case. Having to shim a driver like you mention sounds like Kato has a significant design issue here. Perhpas this is why they are not doing steamers any more. Thanks all, it was good to get other views on the situation. It seems wrong to me that this locomotive can't go backwards without problems. There is no way that we shouldn't be able to back up the locomotive into a siding or something to pick up a string of cars. And I do not think it is unreasonable to back around a 22" radius curve either. This was just a simple loop after all! Anyway, they are off to Kato on Monday, after that, I'll just have to wait and see.
Not good to hear since I just recieved mine yesterday. I only ran it for a short period but it is smooth. Sorry to hear of your problems and I would think Kato would take good care of you. Mine does this to, oh but thats the sound system.:tb-biggrin: This is one nice loco with sound in it.
I ran mine for quite a bit and the only problem I had out of mine is the wheels are not in gauge and it would derail on my code 55 turnouts. But other than that I dont think mine had any problems in "reverse" as we say.
My GS-4 runs fine in reverse (of course, it can find all sorts of bad spots on the track this way). But no issues like what is reported here.
Kato will repair all issues with the GS-4. They have an excellent service department even after their top technician, Dee left some time ago.
My wheel gauge should be coming in soon - I wouldn't be surprised if my wheels are off too. The rest of the track is fine in the forward direction, but can't go through a standard Code 80 turnout in the thrown direction... I'm sure re-gauging the wheels should make everything alright (in the forward direction).
I haven't heard of the problem specific to the GS-4. but at our last club setup, one members GS would just sit...the light came on, but no movement.....and it was brand new out-of-the-box, so there may be a QC issue. I HAVE seen the problem with a number of other brands/models of steam engines, and it seems to be a binding problem in the drive rods. I have a Bachmann 2-8-0 that occasionally stops dead....9 times out of 10, if I simply reverse power, it will move again and I can reverse to the original direction. The 10th time I'll have to press down on the engine and push it in the direction it was traveling ( I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS) it will release and start moving again. I've seen the same thing with Lifelike 2-8-4's and MP 4-6-2's and 2-8-2's, but they seem to need some disassembly to free them up. If it was me, I'd send them to Kato since they're almost new.
Possibly a problem related to DCC Hi John I remember Kato having some problem with the first released GS 4s that I beleive was related to the dcc function. JoeW
I just want to chime in here in response to the quotes below. The design of the Kato GS-4 is to allow all drivers up and down movement such that each driver can have the maximum grip on the rails, even over imperfect dips and bumps. Also remember, only one driver is geared on this piece. The rest are driven by the drive rods themselves which practically eliminates the problem of gears and drive rods kinking against each other, which plagues many model steam (as MRLdave mentions in the post above). Now, if a driver raises and slaps the rail with each turn, this sounds more like a quartering misalignment causing that one wheel to bind against the other 7 wheels (yes both sides are a factor). 7-1 is bad odds, so that wheel will raise under the force. You might also notice that the drive rods on the Kato GS-4 are jointed. That gives us some amount of tolerance, which is why shimming the driver in your case appears to be a solution. Since your GS-4 works with the shim, I wouldnt bother trying to fix it correctly. But if you ever decide to give it a second look, I think under careful examination (and anyone who has had to deal with quartering knows exactly how careful you'll need to be) you might just find this to be the problem. *edit - If your wheel jump only happens in reverse, see my last paragraph here* See above. The design of this piece is phenomenally innovative for N scale steam. Lets also remember, these are no Brio toys. They are precision railroad models, just as Kato's slogan states. They're also delicate as well, so sometimes glitches like these will happen. As for the issue of backing up I want to clarify, when you say the locomotive seized up, can you hear the motor trying to move, or is it complete silence when power is applied? If you dont mind, you might try this simple step before sending the unit in. With power applied (just enough to get the thing moving under normal circumstances) press down carefully but firmly directly above the center axle of the first truck on the tender. If the locomotive takes off (and probably will stop again when you release pressure on the tender), this means the problem here is no more than a simple power contact issue. I have a good feeling this is the ultimate problem because like I said above, there is only 1 geared driver therefore it would be very difficult to get a true seizure from this locomotive, especially by just running in reverse. As for the second driver kinking up in reverse, this goes back to the jointed drive rod. It is constructed so that it is "locked" when the wheels turn in the forward direction, but not reverse. On my particular GS-4, the wheel jump only happens in reverse when the load is too much for the engine to handle, or when I apply reverse power too quickly and allow for no throttle easement. If you experience the wheel jump, try stopping the the train, maybe make sure no cars are snagging anything, perhaps even pull forward a little, then re-attempt the reverse move applying power in small increments. I would not bet on this if I were you.
To fix the problem if this is the case, you'll need to remove the tender shell (it's quite easy) and "reset" the contact pieces that send power to the motor. The interior design of the tender is both incredible and terrible at the same time. It's incredible because it's such an perfectly though out way to easily convert this piece from DC to DCC using the EM13 decoder (if only they tested that on the first run ). The terrible side is that the result is about 5 different power transfers that rely on good contact between electrical pieces, just from decoder to motor. That's per positive or negative pole by the way, so really there is about 10 contact points which affect the motor. A little too many if you ask me, but going back to the good of the interior tender design, Kato managed to pull it off with reliable consistency. But like I said in my post above, this thing is delicate, so glitches are always possible. Removing the tender shell is like removing the shell off a box car. Using a finger nail or jewelers flat headed (be careful not to damage the beautiful details), spread the bottom slightly and lift off. You'll then find a weight which can be removed in much of the same way. You can see where the locking clips are, so just spread those slightly and lift off. That's it, you've just revealed the many electrical contact points which I'd just jiggle to make sure they're properly seated or maybe take them out and wipe down the contact points with a clean cloth. Then re-assemble the tender and the problem of internal contact failure should be resolved.
