Hi Jim, I will use this old topic to say how good tips you put in this article. Recently I received my 2-8-0 (dual mode DCC used on DC for now), and noticed not all wipers are close to wheels. I opened it and made some tweaking, now it seems OK.

But, I have other minor issue: 
I am using sharp European R2 radius as my minimum - approx. 17'' (I live in Croatia, Europe), and after I connect tender with loco and run it few laps through sharp corners, because of "stiffness" of connecting wires headlamp starts to blink and occasionally loco stalls on turnouts.

Why? Because side motion in corners is enough to pull male connector from the tender socket a little bit, and loco and tender then lose el. connection.

Anybody have some idea how to take care of that?
Besides this, engine is great, drives well on both analog and DCC layouts!

Thanks!