4-8-4

[whitepond]

northern 4-8-4 has been boxed for about 9 years. engine will light and makes spinning sounds, but wheels do not turn. Any ideas?

[James in FL]

Hi whitepond

From your description, it sounds like the motor shaft is spinning but no power is transmitted to the wheels.
Remove the shell and place the loco on the tracks, power it up and see whets going on..
Maybe worm is not engaging to the truck gear.
Or perhaps worm or truck gears are not held fast to their respective shafts.

Open it up and report back as to what you observe.

[jwoj69]

northern 4-8-4 has been boxed for about 9 years. engine will light and makes spinning sounds, but wheels do not turn. Any ideas?

This old engines have wheels sitting in plastic gears. It takes only one one wheel set to create this problem. First check if the side bars are not the problem (sometimes they can be responsible for the wheels not moving), check if the driving wheels  ( 8 sets in the middle ) are pushed into their plastic gears ( Use Your thumbs) Try to place engine on the track, give little throttle.
Hope this will help jack
Ps.
If Your track is old as well, make sure to clean it too!!

[skipgear]

The old version of the 4-8-4 suffers from the cracked gear syndrome. More than likely one or more of the gears in the loco has cracked. The cracked gears cause a jam in the mechanism and also slip on any shaft they are supposed to be locked onto.

You best option is to send it back to Bachmann and have them take care of it.