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No makers marks on it anywhere. Bachmann 8 wheel chassis maybe?
Comes with a little gold can motor. No idea if it's actually from this chassis or not. Looks like the motor has a leaf spring and uses the chassis itself as the neg/ground contact.
Trying to decide if it's worth picking up for a couple bucks to mess around with and learn some "kit bash" skills....
Looks like a very old Bachmann GP40/U36B chassis (1970s or so). They had all-wheel pickup and all-wheel drive, but the metal worm mated to metal drive gears made for a very noisy machine. I've used cappuccino machines that were quieter.
No idea, other than clearly old. Are there motors in the trucks? Trying to figure out what the big center opening would have been for? One of those big open frame motors?
No idea, other than clearly old. Are there motors in the trucks? Trying to figure out what the big center opening would have been for? One of those big open frame motors?
Bachmanns of that time period had large rectangular enclosed motors. It's been literally decades since I had one, but it was a really Rube Goldberg setup, with plastic u-joints on a pair of thin steel driveshafts. If the u-joints didn't split, the paper insulator would fail, shorting it out. Later models had a plastic insulator sheet, and they had plastic sheathes around the screws that held everything together to keep the screws from shorting everything out. Then there were the huge electrical connectors that fed power to the motor brushes and weenie-roast headlight.
Ah, found on an another forum from a google search:
"I have an early Bachmann chassis that had an FA shell on it. Missing the trucks though. I also have an early GP chassis of the similar construction. (Don't ask about the paint, that's the way I got it from fleabay.)
This is actually a Teflon paint coating Bachmann used on the 3 chassis they produced from 1970-1974, for the F9, GP40, and their U36B. The chassis pictured above if for the GP40 model. The U36B chassis is almost the same, but comes with 2 light bulbs, the additional one being placed in the nose loop casting seen here, but not used in the GP40. The trucks and drive components are also interchangeable between all 3 chassis, as well. I have about a dozen of the GP40 & U36B models combined, with my latest one being bought from 1RustyCuda (Rich), in the Bicentennial paint job. Which reminds me, although Bachmann dropped the die-cast F9 and GP40 chassis after 1974, they kept selling the diecast U36B in limited numbers as "Deluxe U36B" models up through 1977, in Chessie, ACL 1776, and N&W Bicentennial (betsy-ross-flag) liveries!"
Just posting to tie up this thread in case anyone comes across it in the future with similar questions.
Nah, after taxes and shipping costs (it has an old gp40 body with it) it would cost me around 40-50 bucks (CAD). I just don’t think its worth that to me.
Nah, after taxes and shipping costs (it has an old gp40 body with it) it would cost me around 40-50 bucks (CAD). I just don’t think its worth that to me.
Nah, after taxes and shipping costs (it has an old gp40 body with it) it would cost me around 40-50 bucks (CAD). I just don’t think its worth that to me.
Well, just for arguments sake, if you adjust for inflation that $10 in 1970 becomes roughly $80 in 2025. That's the Bank of Canada calculator. Those calculators use an average of inflation across several goods/commodities, but they're usually reasonably close.
Regardless, I'm still not paying 40-50 bucks for an engine missing parts.....
