Older Atlas Locos


grande man

Bonafied Grande Nut
Hi everyone. We got our GP40 today from an Ebay auction last week. It's one of the old style units but looks to have been used very little. Set me back $29, shipping included! It runs great but needs a few mods. Since the light was burned out, I added a piece of brass tubing inside and installed a Miniatronics bulb in place of the oversized original. This allowed the mount to be left out and eliminated wiring being visable thru the cab windows.

I'm excited to have a project loco! As for future mods, the pilots need to be painted orange (perfect first airbrush project ;) ) to be prototyipically correct. I'm thinking of adding some other detail parts as well. Anyone have any products/techniques they'd like to recommend? Detail Associates parts maybe? The fuel tank has the unsightly groove milled in it. I'm thinking that needs some work. ;) Also, the couplers could be a challenge. Does Kadee make a drop in replacement for the hook and horns? It has the old style without a coupler box.

There's plenty of room for a decoder. It'll have to be hardwired but this one will be one of the easier installs I've done.

I'm open to suggestions and comments. Any ideas out there?
 
Photo,where's the photo? :D
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Willis
 
CBCNSfan said:
OK thanks, eBay special :D when do we see thefinished item? :D
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Willis


Geez, ya'll are ruthless. We just got it this afternoon. :D Man, from that pic, we gotta do something with that fuel tank. :eek:
 
we gotta do something with that fuel tank
Hmmm! the ony suggestion I can come up with is to fill it with fuel and get it on the road :D
we gotta do something with that fuel tank
 
I've never dealt with one of these older Atlas units, but you might be able to do some carving of a Kadee draft gear box to get it to fit in there. EDIT: Here's a link to Kadee's conversion for this specific unit:

http://kadee.com/conv/pdf/atl15.pdf

As for the groove in the side, try bondo. You should be able to clean it up with sandpaper, starting with 220 grit, then 320, then wet-sand with 400 or 600 to finish it up. The contour of the fuel tank isn't going to be dead right after doing this, but it will look much better.

As for detail parts, I usually just go with whichever company makes the specific details I need. I really know nothing about D&RGW locomotives (except the K28s and K36s ;)), so I am not sure what would be added to them. I would expect they'd have a plow of some sort, though, so check Details West for their plows (http://www.detailswest.com/). Their entire catalog can be viewed online, which is very helpful. Also, look under the link on their page for GP30 info (http://www.detailswest.com/gp30_info.htm). It contains a part-by-part listing for a D&RGW GP30, which may still be in your era and have similar details to the GP40.

It looks like a lot of fun, and it is certainly a bargain. How did I know you'd fix the lights first, GM? :)
 
Ryan, you da man! Thanks for the links. I looked on the Kadee site yesterday and just overlooked the #37 coupler.
 
No problem! That #37 coupler took me some searching. I never did find the coupler chart I was looking for....
 
Grande Man, I had 8 of those Roco-built Atlas geeps. Really nice-looking machines, but mine needed a large amount of voltage to run (bought them secondhand, don't know if they were they way brand-new). They're in 'retired' status at the moment. I'm curious to see how yours will operate with DCC.

BTW, I filled my fuel tank gaps with J-B Weld.
 
CSX_road_slug said:
Grande Man, I had 8 of those Roco-built Atlas geeps. Really nice-looking machines, but mine needed a large amount of voltage to run (bought them secondhand, don't know if they were they way brand-new). They're in 'retired' status at the moment. I'm curious to see how yours will operate with DCC.

BTW, I filled my fuel tank gaps with J-B Weld.


We'll see how they run on DCC. Really, I don't see any problem with this one. It seems to run well in analog and takes less to get going than some of the Atearns we've got.

As for the fuel tank, JB weld is a great idea! I think that's the way we'll go.

If I get time today, I'm going to make a trip to the LHS for some orange paint. The Atlas seems to have a darker orange than most of our other Grande equipment, so I brought the shell to match it. Those pilots need to be orange!!!
 
Is this one with a Roco drive? They're pretty smooth runners, and should be easy to wire a decoder in. I have a pair of Atlas/Roco FP7's to do when I get around to soldering decoders in again. Check motor isolation, they are supposed to be isolated but maybe the one FP7 has a bare wire, or my probe slipped, because when I did a quick check it seemed like the motor was grounded to the frame. It could just be the motor case, and the brushes are isolated, which would be OK.

--Randy
 
rrinker said:
Is this one with a Roco drive? They're pretty smooth runners, and should be easy to wire a decoder in. I have a pair of Atlas/Roco FP7's to do when I get around to soldering decoders in again. Check motor isolation, they are supposed to be isolated but maybe the one FP7 has a bare wire, or my probe slipped, because when I did a quick check it seemed like the motor was grounded to the frame. It could just be the motor case, and the brushes are isolated, which would be OK.

--Randy


I do believe it's the Roco drive, it is smooth running. It does appear that the decoder will be an easy install, but I'll check the motor isolation beforehand. Thanks for the heads up.

I bought some paint today for the pilots and the couplers. Hopefully, we can get started on the project soon.
 
Here's a late breaking udate on the 40. :D We airbrushed the pilots orange, Dull Coted/lightly weathered the shell, painted the entry handrails and step edges, installed couplers (they need some more fine tuning). Also, the front logo was black on a white background, yuk. Now it's the correct black with orange lettering. This is the first unit we've done with prototypically correct white entry handrails, we like them! Unfortunately, they're "old school" oversized units.

Here's the progress so far...
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