I will be performing this little project later this week once I get the Bachmann tender. I needed some more space in which to fit the capacitor (because the ends of the wires kept breaking off due to the 90 degree bend) and the speaker.
I bought this tender to adapt:
http://www.modeltrainstuff.com/Bachmann-N-89852-USRA-Long-Tender-Chesapeake-and-O-p/bac-89852.htm
Since the tender comes with a drawbar (which you can’t see form the picture), I will be cutting off the drawbar and using the Model Power Pacific drawbar instead. I will have to drill a hole in the front lower center of the tender to put a screw there for the Model Power tender.
I will have more room for weights and the Soundtraxx decoder I have in the Kato tender I have now. I will keep you updated with pictures!
I finally got the decoder installed and working, however, it was running poorly on the one section of my layout for the following reasons. 1. The drawbar was connected to the tender via the front center screw that hold the circuit board to the tender floor, and it did not like to be tied down, even on the very slight uphill incline. 2. The rear tender trucks had very little freeplay in them when the tender screws were tightened, due to the way the pickup springs contacted the brass pickup tabs on the rear tender trucks.
So I removed the rear pickup springs and soldered some super flexible wire to the rear tender truck pickup tabs and to the two areas where the springs connected. That way I will not have any issues with the pickup.
Also, I will have to file down some of the top inside of the tender ceiling because a part of the TSU-750 Soundtraxx decoder I have is impacting me screwing down the tender all the way to the floor, and it’s causing the floor to warp.
I like the long-haul tender because of the extra room, and but the circuit board is annoying. If I can’t get the ceiling properly filed down, I’m going to remove the circuit board from the tender.
Pictures to follow.