Yes, all my Lifelike have springs and 90% of the engines run great. I think the tube suggestion was made to negate the added spacer, as the tube will not flex so the worm gear will remain center at all times. All ideas are welcome and worth a try. It truly couldn't hurt as the engines I am working on are not worthy of running as of now.
I have nothing against using silicone tubing as a universal joint. In fact, some of my old Atlas/Rivarossi steamers were very noisy with the original plastic, two-piece joints in them because the frames had deteriorated from Zamacitis and, even though I was able to repair the frames for use and the locos run very nicely, the two pieces of the joint were not lined up exactly right and caused a kind of buzzing or clattering noise as they rotated against each other. The tubing quieted them right down. Doug
Yes, replacing the brushes is problematic. If it came down to replacing the brushes, I feel the best option would be to remove the motor and find another.
Hi folks. I have been working on 2 GP18's, one I have completed. I completely stripped down the Rock Island to the motor. I pulled the wheels, rewired the entire unit, cleaned and oiled it. It now runs better than it ever has. I do not think these old GP18's will run much better, the engineering of the unit prevents it from being a top tier runner, but that was the purpose of these old Llifelikes. They were built well enough at a very affordable price. This unit is worthy of a decoder now. I will buy another DZ126 for 25.00 dollars and give this unit it's final upgrade. This unit will creep. It creeps well forward but slightly choppy on the creep in the rear direction. You can definitely see the pulse pushing it along. The good news is this unit would not run slow; it had a hard time moving in standard speed. I kept working on it until I finally decide to just overhaul it in its entirety.
Here is an update on more mods done to my GP18 RI. I ordered some tubing, but trying to find the exact size I needed was impossible. I ordered the closest size I could find, then I had to wait about 2 weeks for the stuff to arrive, Cutting the tubing even and flush seems to be a challenge, so my first try isn't exactly perfect, I will redo it until I get it where I want it. Once the tubing was in, I had to file the weights down for clearance, I still need to work on the weights to keep the tubing from rubbing. I did notice a damping in the noise, the engine also runs slow but she won't creep (more of a crawl). I also noticed that more power is needed to drive this engine with the tubing in it compared to the spring drives. I have the power up to about 1/3 open and I get the engine to crawl, at about 40 she runs at a standard clip. I pulled back in the video towards the end to show the throttle speed.
