Shell removal HELP!

[RGW]

I think the 1st thing you need to do is remove the boiler shell, it took me some time to figure out to remove mine.(I have since forgot how I did it but it has something to do with the cab floor and a plastic connector there) From there you should be able to test the motor out,you should be able to see which leads go to the motor and the light.I believe you can test for the light lead with a 1.5 volt battery,I think that is a correct voltage for LEDs and should not harm it. Maybe others gave give a second opinion on this and correct any errors in my voltage. hope this helps. It may be necessary to remove the engine side circuit board it is equally as completed  as the tender side that you already saw.Some time it is easy to replace wiring than to patch in the old ones.
Once again maybe other have a better idea for a fix. 

RGW

[skipgear]

You need a motor. The light board let go because the motor brushes wore out and shorted. It has been documented before in other loco's with this motor.

If it is just the chokes that melted, cut them out and bypass them, replace the motor and put it back together.

By-passing the tender will work if you don't have any plans to convert it to DCC later. You will loose tender pickup and the loco will not run very good at all. You will still get directional lighting (it's an LED, it only works when the polarity is correct). For a resistor, use around an 800 to 1000 ohm to be safe and make sure you get the polarity right or it will only light when in reverse.

Talk to somebody in service, explain that you have superdetailed the loco and do not want to loose your work. I have had that happen and they told me to pull the shell and keep it when sending the loco in. They returned a mechanism just as I sent them.

I hadn't noticed that service pricing jumped that substancially. Wow, almost double in some cases.

[wobblinwheel]

No kidding about the pricing! Spectrum was $45, while other stuff was cheaper, but I forgot the price. I never intend to go DCC on this N scale setup. I have an HO scale layout upstairs that is DCC, sound and all that. I just have the N scale downstairs just to "play with". Never counted on my newest loco to just die on me! I also now have many dead sections on my track since this happened. No power on the "common" side of several of the blocks. Can't figure for the life of me why it didn't trip the circuit breaker in the MRC power pack! Trainworld still has these on sale for $69. I may just buy another for parts, since I have two J's on my layout. I really want to try to keep the drive train on this loco, since I have fine-tuned it to work with some of the tight turns on my small (hollow-door) layout. I have adjusted the tension on the pilot trucks to illiminate the occaisional derailments on turnouts, also added weight to the trailing trucks and tenders. I also have adjusted the driver spacing on front and rear driver sets to make it track easier on my inside track, which has 9 1/2" radius curves. This is why I don't want just a "replacement". Also, I just like working on them anyway. I would like to experiment on doing away with the circuit boards, and using the tender for motor power pickup only. From what I've seen, there's plenty of room in the loco for a resistor for the headlamp, same for the back-up lamp running off tender power pickup. Only two wires to the loco....."I have a dream" lol

[wobblinwheel]

Well, I finally got the shell off! It seems there was a piece of black electrical tape stuck to the inside back of the shell that was wedging the frame in there. A little prying under the cab, and it lifted off. When I separated the six wires from one another to figure out which two went to the motor, three wires broke away from the tender plug with no effort whatsoever. Two of these wires were the motor wires. Applying track power to these wires did nothing. After separating the red and black (motor) wires from the boiler-mounted circuit board, I applied power directly to the motor, and it ran perfectly. I am thinking about running the motor wires directly to the frame halves, leaving the tender-to-frame wires intact, insuring I'll have tender pickup for the motor also. The circuit boards will remain for lighting purposes only. This will eliminate TWO wires going to the tender! I'm also wanting to go ahead and replace the remaining four tender wires with regular insulated wire. I've got some wire that would be perfect, but it's YELLOW (yuck). Gonna dismantle a modular phone cable to see what they look like........I'll keep you posted...oh, by the way, the blue headlamp wire broke from the engine-mounted board the second the wire was moved. They definitely need to improve their wire and soldering!

[Mike C]

 I would try to find some decoder wire somewhere instead of using the phone wire. The phone wire I think is a bit too stiff and you may have problems with it not being able to flex between the loco and tender....Mike

[RGW]

I use some thin wire I bought from my LHS it is red. I paint it flat black ,seems to work fine.

[wobblinwheel]

Well, I found some suitable wire, rewired the loco-to-tender (with only four wires). It was one tedious job, involving complete disassembly of the engine. I gotta admit this is a well engineered little piece of work. If quality control was a little better, this could be one of the best n scale steamers made. Motor is till acting up, but not as bad, or as frequent. With the motor leads wired directly to frame and tender, the motor power is pretty much bypassing the boards. At least I am fully convinced the motor is / was the entire problem, although wiring problems were inevitable. It's time to go to "plan B".......