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So i picked up this Concor loco from a member on the forums, and I'm looking into re-motoring it to make it DCC compatible. The motor and circuit board is ancient. Here are questions I have.
1)How would I go about installing a new circuit board?
2)How do I find a newer motor that will fit in place of the old one?
Well, why re-motor? That looks like a can motor. It should work fine. You can test it for max amp draw, but from it's looks, I wouldn't worry about it. Better quality locos have had can motors in them for a while. As to the circuit board, typical for a loco with lights only. Trash it and hard wire the decoder in directly.
OK looking at your pics, that looks like it could be a NWSL repower kit. If it is, the motor is fine. You have it loose so test it with a power pack. If it runs quiet out of the engine, something else is making the noise. Check to see if anything rubs. Run the loco without the shell. See if you can locate anything rubbing. Could also be gear noise. Check those drive shafts & U joints and make sure nothing is out of line or bent.
As for hard wiring the decoder in, just follow the instructions for whichever brand you have. Got one picked yet? It does not have to be a drop in board type. There likely isn't one for those Con Cor models anyway. A DH-163 would work, or a DH 123, or equivalent models by NCE, TCS, or whatever you like.
Loud? Nature of the beast. NWSL should have a gear kit, but no guarantees it would quiet things down. The motor, as mentioned looks like a NWSL re-power kit.
As far as decoders, I use harnesses with removable decoders. If I fry a decoder, the work of replacement is quite easy. Pull the old one out and plug the new one in.
Thanks guys. I'll look into it more. I ran the loco with no shell, still loud. All of the U joints and drive shafts are properly in place and not bent. I went on to completely take it apart. Took all of the gearing out of the trucks to clean them and then I will re-grease them (The other grease was probably a good age).
