Help with Emerald Night Locking up & grinding to a halt

Hi i have the Emerald night train and have been running it on my layout for about 2 months now and have had no problems with it even with flexitrack in my layout.

However recently when going in reverse the wheels lock up and grind the train to a halt i have tried new batteries in my PF, New Rubbers on the wheels.
Any ideas as to why this has just started happening?
Please help as my Emerald Night looks like its going to the train shed to retire soon

This link might help you.....Eurobricks Train Tech link

Thanks for the help Lightningtiger i will try this out

SnapLock,

LT's link does give help with 'quartering'.

Another problem that occurred in the instructions is on page 2 or 3. There are 2 little tan cogs that connect the motor to the drive wheels.
Has one of these come loose or fallen out? These can be seen underneath the train.

Thanks for the help guys I have tried both solutions and still it locks up

i think i have found the problem it was The driving rods (pistons) weren’t always moving
horizontally they would flex just a small amount cause & friction in the Technic Axle joiner.
As discussed in Rail bricks Magazine here's the solution to one of the Emerald nights numerous problems


Now the next problem i have is Does anyone know of anywhere in Adelaide that sell these type of Technic pieces? i have never had to find spare parts before so im a bit lost as to were to go.
Thanks

Toy Corner....I thought you would have known that by now ?

There are about 6 tweaks that reduce the chance of the EN locking up, many of the failures only show once a bit of wear starts to show, and some lockups only happen when the friction has been enough to cause heat. To get it to run reliably at shows for the ~4 hour life of a rechargeable battery all the tweaks are useful.

The Eurobricks link LT provides gives a good starting point, somewhere within the 30 or so pages on EB is an article by a guy who was having trouble running his EN at shows and progressively worked out the problems.

I remember one significant improvement was replacing the axle pins some of the wheels are connected with, with axles, which significantly reduces friction. The double length cylinders was another critical one.

Bricklink is my goto place for spare LEGO parts.