Hello all, Recently I had one of my Proto 2000 RS-2s running at the club, I noticed that it's performance was spotty at best. I was as if it wasn't getting power. I cleaned the wheels, checked all of the contact points, and there are no issues of with the decoder. One of the other members suggested replacing the motor brushes. I'm pretty handy, but I'm not sure I completely understand the process. Is there a how to somewhere on the forum? What about parts? I've heard the Walthers/P2K aren't the best places to try to get replacement parts from. Thanks for the help!
Replacing motor brushes is pretty simple, although it does involve disassembling the mechanism in order to get at the motor. The motor brushes are the little carbon (or whatever) cylinders that live underneath the two brushcaps (think pencil leads). To replace them, you simply pull off the brushcaps. The brushes sit inside hollow tubes inside the motor (with downward pressure provided by tiny springs). N scale motor brushes are pretty standard, so you could probably use Katos (part #927010) if you can't find any Life-Like parts - -Mark
If it's the brushes,I'll really be surprised.Other than garbage Bachmann locos I got in the 90's that had bad brushes out of the box,and a few TRIX F's I got in the 60's that probably have 50 miles on them,I've never put brushes in a locomotive in over 40 years.I run my stuff a lot,too..
yeah the brushes shouldnt be worn out, BUT but but, I did have a cracked one on an Atlas GP15 that I replaced with the Kato brushes I bought from woo woo woo¤¤¤¤¤. I thinks thats the place.
Brushes are about the only thing I haven't tried. All contact points are clean, and I swapped out the decoder this morning (the "new" one coming from a Kato RS-2 which was running fine) I put the decoder from the P2K in the Kato and it ran just fine. Even with the new decoder the running characteristics did not change. I think I have some Kato brushes somewhere, I'll give those a try this afternoon. Thanks for the help!
Just what are the "running characteristics?" Really,I'd almost suspect a bad motor over a bad brush.Take the motor out and put power to it,see how it runs.Does it hum?Is it running hot? Can you easily just try it on straight DC?
Proto 2000 would be HO scale, so I'm assuming you mean Proto as in N scale. It's probably the brushes or the brush springs failing. The Kato brushes 927010 will work fine. They should fit just about any modern asian N scale motor. You probably won't need the Kato caps so toss them in your parts box. They are about $3.50 for the 2 brushes, 2 springs, and 2 caps. I just put them in just the way they are with no goop of any kind. good idea to first blow out the holes in the brush holder just to be sure there are no crumblies in there. It'll prolly run sweet when your done and won't YOU feel good!
PS I forget to tell you that the brush caps can be tough to get off. use a good quality needlenose plier and a good hard precision screwdriver. take care not to damage the motor terminal contacts. be patient, but persistent!
Walthers lists only Kato (381) 957010 as the motor brushes, is it the same item? MBxxxxx shows no listing for brushes. Bill in FtL
Sometimes I will notice that the metals tabs on the trucks will get out of place in relation to the metal strips on the body. Not a big deal to get them back aligned. Sometimes I have thought about soldering a wire between the truck and the body.
