I took a risk and bought a Bowser 4-6-6-4 kit and 4-8-8-4 kit off Ebay. I replaced both motors with a DC-71 motor and modified the drive line. They are very noisey. The noise increases with speed.
Does a worm and gear type drive line quite down over time?
Has anybody experience converting the driveline to the “gearbox” from NWSL?
Has anybody used DCC with the DC71 motor?
Maybe in can use a DCC sound card and just ‘drown the sound’
the gear noise will eventually get a little less, but don´t expect miracles. I assume the gears to be brass gears and metall gears are noisy. Trying to “drown” the gear noise by installing sound into the loco won´t help much - all you get is a loco which is even noisier!
DC-71 motors draw a lot of amps and are potentially “eating” decoders, if their rating is too low. Better to install a Maxxon or Buehler motor.
As Ulrich stated, that particular motor might draw too much current for any decoder currently on the market. I would email or call NWSL and see what they recommend.
Also, I would try running your steamer on a big loop of track - backwards and forwards & at different speeds - to properly break it in. That should quiet it down some but I don’t know how much. You might want to try that a couple of times; cleaning the re-greasing the gears each time. What lubricant are you using on your gears?
Lastly, here’s a clickable version of the link you provided:
I bought a Bowser Big Boy kit in 1963 and ran it with the original DC71 motor until just before I sold it (big mistake) in 2012. It was never noisy from day one. I remotored it using a Faulhaber 2224 RS motor and installed a Digtrax 164 decoder. It was a good runner but wouldn’t negotiate my 18” radius non mainline turnouts. Another reason for letting it go is I’m a die hard SP guy and It did put some cash in my railroading account.
The Faulhaber motor was a real winner in the Big Boy.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
I also have a Bowser 4-6-6-4 with the DC-71 motor, and I found most of the noise came from the universal coupling at the motor end. The sharp angle cause a LOT of noise. I eventually replaced it with a drive tubing system and a 2nd shaft with its own support bearings, and it’s a decently quiet runner now.
It was a close fit but it worked out very good. I had to make a new driveline using a driveline kit from NWSL. The motor had to be mounted just clearing the cab rear wall. I extended the 2224 RS shaft so the worm gear would mesh correctly. I used a short section of K&S 9821 2mm ID brass tubing to extend the shaft. The tubing works very good for extending 2mm motor shafts. I used CA in the tubing and there is no measurable shaft wobble or vibration.
This picture was taken on its farewell trip around my main line before I sold it.
I am a former Bowser employee. Whenever they did any repair work on a steamer they ran them on the store layout for a minimum of 50 hours to break them in and quiet them down…honest truth. With time they DO quiet down but the unmodified original drives will never be what one might call quiet by most people’s current standards for steam power.
The open gears and any nylon material at all (others like Mantua used nylon gears) are notorious for producing noise. If you want quiet you need fully enclosed gearboxes and can motors.
Some folks like Howard Zane now swear by the Faulhaber motors for their excellent torque and performance.
Best steam kits I have ever built! When they announced they were leaving that business, I had two on back order, and went out and bought them on EBay as quickly as possible. They truly are wonderful kits, and it’s too bad the market no longer supported the business. With time and care, they build up into wonderful, durable models, and they’re easy to customize (except the PRR engines, but only because it’s impossible to disguise a PRR design).
My original 1963 Bowser Big Boy (Kit) was one of the best locomotives I ever owned! It ran perfect from day one. I don’t remember it ever being noisy even early on. I used Lubriplate white grease on the gears and axles, maybe that helped the noise problem.
I bought a second Big Boy at a train show in the early 1980s that was very rough and in pieces. Thanks to Bowser Parts I was able to restore it to original condition. Thinking back I eroded in my earlier post, I remotored the restored locomotive not my original Big Boy. When I sold my original it still had the Pitman DC71 motor.
My Kodak digital camera died so I don’t have any pictures to reference back to the Faulhaber re-motor project. Some of my brain cells don’t connect but to the best of what I can remember I glued the Faulhaber 2224SR to the Bowser frame with Amazing Goop after extending the shaft. I remember cutting the DC71 shaft flush at the motor bushing to save the worm gear then used the K&S brass tubing as a shaft coupling to secure the Bowser worm to the new motor.
I have successfully used K&S #9821 2mm ID brass tubing to extend motor
It was my first job and I worked winters, summers, and weekends (when not working for PennDOT on summer weekdays) while getting through engineering school. In PA you have to be 18 or a high school graduate to work in a machine shop. For me there were two days difference either way, and I started working there on my 18th birthday.
I was privileged to do some of the nastiest, dirtiest work they had: bead blasting, turning armatures on a lathe, casting zinc boilers, milling and drilling. I drilled all the boiler holes on the first run of M1 and M1a steamers, if I recall correctly, and learned many valuable lessons from Lee, Lew, and Lew, Jr.
Yes, there have been many fine modelers who loved the kits!
Unfortunately, at the end the yearly kit sales allegedly did not match the factory payroll (some folks also had time on the mail order side of the business), so further production of steam locomotives, kit or rtr, was unsustainable.
I am sure they are glad to periodically hear from the satisfied owners of those engines, so thank you for the kind comments…I will pass them along the next time I am in town to see them. They do not spend much time in online forums, only a little bit here and there, because are busy just making product.
I recently completed a Bowser Casey Jones kit, and I enjoyed it so much I have been trying to find another Bowser kit to build. I’ve looked at train shows and eBay, but I have’t had much luck–I recently lost an auction for a Challenger. I just won a K-4s, however, and I’m excited, even though I don’t model PRR. It’s too bad the kits were unsustainable.
I did not realize that Bowser had taken over the old Varney Casey Jones. That loco always had a long-limbed grace, to me. I remember an article in MR where one was used to build the first (?) sound equipped HO locomotive.
You’re welcome. Some part of my rapidly failing long term memory leads me to believe that the 4-6-0 actually appeared in an earlier MR article on the Puget Sound Short Lines and that Chaudiere had modified the Casey Jones to look more like an NP S-4. There was an article in the May, 1959, MR on the PSSL and I think the locomotive (pre-sound) appeared in that article.
That’s good of you. I hope to be a satisfied customer for a long time to come, since I have four unbuilt kits, a dockside to super detail, and a Cary boiler kit that I have plans for. Perhaps I will live to finish them!
I am using Labelle 296 grease with polyltetrafluoroethylene (I try to use atleast one multisylable word everyday) on the worm and gear.
I may have talked to LEE at Bowser (hate to rely on memrory) and he said you could use just about any oil on the Bowser kits. But I have been using some Labelle I purchased through Bowser. The Labella 107 is electrically conductive oil.
