HO scale Berkshire 2-8-4 Locomotive not running.

[Farley14]

Hi, I'm new to the forums but maybe I can get an answer to my problem. I recently bought a new 2 pin wire connector from bachmann for my dcc tender that broke. It's just a non sound dcc locomotive (Pere Marquette #1218) to be exact.  I just twisted the correct wires back together for a test run and a weird thing happened. It just started humming and it doesn't move. I thought I may have possibly got the two wires backwards so I swapped them out and I'm getting the same result. Here is where it gets weird when I removed the tender from the track the locomotive and headlight began working properly in both directions. When the tender is placed back on the track with power to the track the engine stops and hums. I have no idea what could be wrong with it now, I checked all the soldering connections and didn't find any broken wires either. Please help I'm out of ideas. Thank you!

[RAM]

Did one of the tender trucks get turn around?

[Farley14]

I don't think so but I'll give try twisting the trucks, thanks!

[Farley14]

None of the trucks can be twisted around they both have pins to keep them from going too far.

[WoundedBear]

Did you remove the axles from the truck frames? If so, ensure that the insulated sides are oriented correctly for each truck.

Sid

[Farley14]

I did actually, how would I know how to properly orient the wheels? Thank you!

[WoundedBear]

Uhhh....look for the insulators at the axle ends, and (probably using a multimeter) figure out which truck picks up from which side and set the axles back into the sideframes accordingly.


Sid

[Farley14]

Okay, they were all mixed up. That solved the problem, Thank you guys I never would have thought of the wheels being backwards.