Rare drive mechanism

[jeffrey-wimberly]

You guys ever see a drive unit like this? Yes, that's an open frame motor you see. The chassis frame is two pieces, upper and lower, the drive line is somewhat like Athearn, with metal gears.

Believe it or not, this is the chassis of a thirty year old Bachmann that I recently converted to DCC. It was made in Germany in the 70's and I've seen very few like it.

 

[jbaakko]

Split frame, like the older Brass units?

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Split, yes. A bottom half and a top half. I've not seen many of this type. Even when I bought it, it was a rarity. Many loco types from that time have the frame split down the middle, a left half and a right half. Also, it seems these were being made in several countries at once, with different manufacturing processes being used.

 

[jbaakko]

Huh, odd. Does it run good?

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Yes, it runs very well, even after thirty years. It spent three years in a display cabinet doing nothing because I was running all Athearn at that point.

 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

I decided it was time to remotor this beast. I had planned on using a Mashima motor but couldn't find one in my parts box. I did however find a PPW motor that I had gotten to remotor a 4 axle switcher, which I never got around to doing. Removing the old open frame motor was easy enough. It was getting the can motor to go in that was the tough part. It took a little grinding, a little coaxing, some kind words and some glue to get it place, but it's done. It's a shotgun wedding if ever there was one, but it's a 300% improvement. The locomotive used to hitch (jerk) when going from low speed to high speed. No longer. Now it's a smooth acceleration from low speed to high speed. And it's much quiter. Before it sounded like a small pepper mill. Now it's almost silent.