Over the past couple of days, I have completely disassembled one of my two FVM CP ES44ACs. Why? 1) I can't help it, I have Asperger's and have a compulsion to take mechanical objects apart, 2) Who knows what you might learn? 3) I have my reasons, but I'm not telling ;-) well, read on and I'll tell, sort of. First, the mechanical/electrical: Out of the box, my engine ran a bit growly and slow speed performance was OK, but a bit jerky. So I removed the shell using the "drop technique" of inverting the box lid, placing the engine's front pilot on one end with engine in the lid, lifting one inch and dropping. Same for the rear, both ends loosen and come off about a quarter inch, repeat or just pull off. That was easy. After ruling out gross anomalies like partly-off trucks and foreign objects in the motor, I put Pearl Drops tooth polish into the worms and ran forward and back on DC for about an hour, then loosened the frame screws, removed the trucks, washed the Pearl Drops out with warm water and a soft toothbrush, dried them out with compressed air from my airbrush, and reattached. Result: Smoother slow speed, but still growling. OK, it's probably the brass worms themselves, the Delrin gears should have been polished well. So, I filled the brass worms with MAAS metal polish, and ran again in both directions for about an hour. I had to take the entire mechanism apart after that to clean the MAAS out, again just with warm water and toothbrush. The worms gleamed in the light. The mechanism is exactly like a Kato AC4400CW, except just aft of the front power pads on the lightboard, there are two frame holes with brass springs inside which touch the underside of the power pads and provide compression and better electrical contact. Good idea! OK, after this I had to disassemble the trucks. You don't have to pick away at the little tabs with a toothpick, just hold one end of the truck between your thumb and index finger using both hands and gently push down on the wheels with your thumb while pushing up on the underside of the sideframe with your index finger. Snaps right open. One truck rolled free as a floating air hockey puck, the other rolled an inch and stopped. I removed little burrs on the axle gears, but no change. No other explanation, except...when all else has been done, check the slop and alignment of the axle vs truck gears. I pushed one wheel(the closest to the gear) of each axle all the way in, then regauged by pulling out a bit on the other using the NMRA gauge. Eureka!! Now both trucks rolled like floating air hockey pucks. After reassembling the whole shebang, the mechanism ran silent and smooth--very good, indistinguishable from a Kato. This whole process really wasn't that difficult, say compared to the new screwless Kato trucks. Now for the hard part, taking the shell completely apart. On the exploded diagram, it looks like the Kato SD70M, of which I had just converted two flat rad types into CN SD75is (a whole story in itself, and not as easy as I thought). So I kind of knew what to expect... BUT, ladies and gentlemen, this is no Kato. It is a copy of one in the way the parts fit together, which is fine, but it ends there. The difference, I'm sorry to say, is Quality of material. As best as I can tell, the only parts of this engine made of Delrin are: 1. the truck sideframes and truck tower/gearbox 2. the MU hose clusters 3. frame spacers and bearing blocks 4, the MT couplers. Everything else, including the handrails, the "shock absorber" sill piece, the tank, snow plow, is soft white painted styrene, very fragile and easily damaged. Or maybe the handrails are some type of inferior engineering plastic, but don't have the flexibility or resiliency of what I expect on a Kato engine. After pushing the red bodyshell tabs outboard with a toothpick, I was able to free up the handrail piece from the shell and sill pieces except at the cab. There are little mushroom cap tabs holding the cab inverter cabinet and the corresponding piece on the right into the handrail piece. On the Kato, you pull down a bit on the front pilot while pulling the cab forward until the little tabs pop out, then the whole thing falls apart in your hands. Well, this plastic was much softer and "stickier" and covered with paint. It took a lot of effort, with round toothpicks sticking out all over like a pincushion, some quick prayers to the gods of engineering, steady pulling and suddenly it was over, like a bad tooth removed. I actually had the thing apart and nothing was broken! The headlight/numberboard glass/light shield came out easily by pushing down on the sand hatches on the front of the cab and a bit of prying. A lot of mold sprue "attachments" (can't think of the word) that should have been smoothed off many of the pieces. The snow plow came off by Carefully prying (it's just painted styrene), but the cut levers (which I don't care for in plastic, I'm going to replace with BLMA parts) came off with some of their mounting stubs still in the pilot face--They also seem to be styrene rather than Delrin. The real disappointment was trying to get the ditchlights out and both the front and rear porch floor pieces. On a Kato, you just gently separate everything and it comes apart. Here, I saw what looked like little dabs of CA over the mounting holes. I had to drill obliquely into the plastic frame to reach the underside of the floor to give some leverage, by pushing with the inverted end of the drill bit, the pieces popped out, but the mounting pins remained in situ. The white paint started flaking off the front and rear handrails, revealing a clear-cloudy plastic base. I'm going to soda blast these gently then repaint or replace with wire. These handrails have a very fragile "feel" to them once they are out of their mounting holes(which was an easy task, thankfully). So, in summary, I feel good about restoring the mechanicals to Kato-like smoothness, I do not like the plastic cut levers, and I am disappointed in the quality of plastic used on this engine considering the price is either equal to or higher than the Kato version coming soon. I think the bodyshell is just fine, and appreciate the added detail parts in the little bag. But I don't like the sill shock absorber piece (not Delrin), the sill, frame, pilots, steps, floor and handrails (again, either not Delrin or an inferior quality engineering plastic). For those of you who, like me, like to "roll their own" engines, ie customize to the point of stripping, rebuilding, superdetailing, repainting, etc., this will be a more difficult job than with a Kato. Structurally, this engine reminds me of the Athearn SD7xx series in terms of the plastic used, not the glued-together aspect--give FVM credit for that. If, on the other hand, you have no intention of touching the bodyshell and will be running as is, it is a fine product, but...do take the shell off using the method I described at the beginning, loosen the frame screws, take the trucks off and roll them. If one or both does not roll freely (and I mean floating air-hockey puck freely), ask for a replacement which has been tested. A Pearl Drops or MAAS creme polishing job is nice, but you have to be able to take the whole frame apart and put it back together. Final Rating: Appearance 9/10 Mechanical performance on DC 6/10 out of box, 9/10 after treatment Fit and Finish 8/10 Quality of Material used 6/10 Purely subjective of course, will I buy the third CP GEVO? No. Will I buy the CN ES44DC Yes, it's a must have and Kato won't do it or will just slap CN paint on the AC version.
your findings are similar to what i found out. all my 4 cp rail units (i renumbered one) were extremely slow at the beginning. after running the 4 units top speed increased a bit. slow speed performance is excellent. since i do sand the plating of the wheels on all my engines before i run them first, i can't judge on the jerky slow speed performance. disassembly of the shell is similar to a kato ac4400. but the material used seems to be more brittle. using scalecoat wash-away for removing the numbers did not harm the paint or the shell. there are some things that can be improved. but for a first loco from fox valley the model is still extremely well done.
[. there are some things that can be improved. but for a first loco from fox valley the model is still extremely well done.[/QUOTE] Sandro: Yes, it's well done. Somewhere along the way, a decision about the type of plastic used had to have been made. I just wish a higher grade was selected, other than that, I guess a bad truck happens or that type of slight binding was considered acceptable and it may well be acceptable to most people. Still, I was able to get the other truck to roll freely on a tabletop by messing around with it in various ways. Richard.
Richard, I too have completely stripped down a FVM GEVO so that I could put a fantasy paint scheme on what would be a fantasy loco for the SP. You know , "it's my rairoad". It was not easy to seperate all the shell components. I have lost interest and the thing is sitting in its box now since January. Why? Before I answer let me say that I realize it is the first effort by FVM and that it is nicely detailed and all that stuff. I hope they succeed and do other locos. Problem is it will not run on my layout. It derails in one spot on the layout when everything else I have runs ok over the spot. To their credit, FVM sent me two complete chasis to test but they also did the same thing. I sent pictures of trackage to FVM and they agreed the track looked ok. I found, IMHO, that there is a problem in the FVM trucks. Not enough slop. I ordered a set of KATO C-44 trucks and placed them on the FVM mechanism and it runs perfectly over the entire layout. Go figure. Now to get the interest up again to finish my project. Carl
Carl: I appreciate your situation; I have 3 partly finished locos on the workbench, but they are mostly just awaiting sound decoders, and a fourth is so complicated I wonder if it's even worth trying. I think putting the GEVO back together will be easier than taking it apart, although the passage of time may have caused you to forget the fine points of assembly, but you can do it. Have you lost interest because of the mechanical problem which you have corrected, or is it the likelihood of damaging the shell in reassembly after you've gone to all the trouble of repainting it, or more like permanent bad vibes from a bad experience? It sounds like a bit of good luck came your way in that the Kato trucks fit the chassis, maybe your luck will hold all through the painting and assembly process. FWIW, my second GEVO had both trucks rolling perfectly upon removal, yet the engine growled like a cornered tomcat when running. I filled the worms with MAAS metal polish creme, left it running for a couple of hours (forgot about it actually) and now it sounds like nothing-no sound at all, just the motor whine at high speeds. I think the gearing needs cleaning and polishing. If you're putting sound in, you don't need mechanical noise. Richard.
FVM derails.... Carl, I had the same problem trying to get a member's FVM GEVO to run on our club layout. I tried everything I could think of, but to no avail. There are some areas of our trackage which are to say "less than perfect", but all of our other locos would run through the spot which give the GEVOs problems. It took quite a while, but I think we figured the problem out. It seems that the flanges on the wheels are too perfect to run on anything but super smooth track. Not realizing that the Kato truck fits right in(thank you!), I replaced the outboard wheelsets of one truck with a pair of Kato sets, and the outboard sets of the other truck with Atlas ones. There's no need to change gears, as they fit right in. Much cheaper than buying entire trucks as I simply used sets from old or damaged ones. Just don't use wheelsets from an SD90MAC, as they are entirely too large. Hope this helps...John C
Richard, My real loss of interest stems from another project that I am completing ( Koi pond ), I am not afraid of re-assembling the unit, but it will take time to remember some of the orientation of parts. Will complete later. BTW, mine is quite runner. Just luck? John C, Thanks for the input. Somebody else told me that they swapped out all wheelsets with new KATO pieces. I tried a truck from my C-44 and found it fit, so I ordered a set because I don't have a used parts bin. It does run fine with the swap.
