Converting 25+ y/o Pwd to Dummy

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Hi all.

It’s been a while since I’ve been to the forums.

Here’s my situation…

A great majority of my powered engines, ALL DC, are at least 25 y/o. Much of them and my rolling stock have been in my possession since before graduating Junior High.

One of my engines is an HO Scale Life-Like pre-Proto series F40PH. It bears the Amtrak stripes and numbered 229 on the sides towards the rear.

Anybody having experience with pre-Proto Life-Likes will probably remember that they’re noisy, jerk forward, stop a bit, then race like a demon around a layout.

I hadn’t run my F40PH in a while, so I decided to run it yesterday and today; it will comfortably pull a light consist of anywhere from two to four cars and all of a sudden come to a standstill with its motor racing. It’s as if it’s struggling to move. Even uncoupled and by itself it won’t move, it’ll stay in place with its motor racing and its headlight bulb flaring.

I cracked it open, removed the immense weight, and checked its mechanics. There’s a plastic shock-absorber looking thing that fits into the motor at one end and the unpowered wheel truck at the other. I thought, okay, the shock-absorber must be falling out of where it fits into. Used a light touch of plastic cement on each end, fit it back into place and let it set for a while. Ran fine for bearly five minutes and the problem reared its ugly head again.

I don’t have the funds to procure a new F40PH, let alone a previously-owned one. And it would be a waste of funds if I had them to look into having it repaired. Yet, it wouldn’t be a motivated by Amtrak layout without an F40PH on the line.

So I thought of making this thing into a dummy/un-powered engine.

I checked the forums and found nothing near to how it can be done.

So I’m raising a flag for help… Is there a way to convert a powered HO Scale Life-Like F40PH built before the Proto Serie

2

LL locomotives were having problems with cracked gears. Contact them about ordering a replacement set.

3

I wonder if a gear is either stripped, cracked as Marlon says, and is slipping on its axis. If you can clamp the motor to keep it from spinning its driveshaft, will one or more gears still spin? I also wonder if you dealt with the drive shaft, itself, earlier. It could be spinning on one end if it is the plastic tube type…not really clear from your description. It might be helpful to post a close-up, well-focused image of the works for those familiar with this model to see. You’ll need a free account at a webhost for images, places like photobucket or railimages where the server here can read the image using the URL for that image from the webhost when you past the URL into a post here.

4

Basically just removing the motor and connecting parts/gears should make the engine a dummy, if the trucks are otherwise free-rolling.

If you shop around (ebay, online, flea markets etc.) you should be able to find a Spectrum F40PH for $30-40 or so that runs pretty well for an inexpensive engine. Kato makes one that is more expensive but better detailed and will run better. (If you have a dummy F40PH, you still need a powered engine to pull the dummy and the train!! [:)])

5

Even Amtrak made some F40PH’s dummies. They took out the engine and put a big roll up door in the side. they call them cab/baggages. We call them cabages. Then you could tack it on the back just like they do so your crews have a place to operate on the return trip without turning the train.

6

Take out some of the gears in the powered truck. I had one of these units, just removing the gears on the inside of the power truck will do the trick.

7

Medina…

It’s a thought, contacting to replace cracked gears. Only hold-up is, Life-Like was taken over by Walthers and it’s doubtful they’d keep parts for engines made over 25 yrs ago, long before Proto 1000 even came out.

8

The cracked gears issue is in a totally different line of locomotive (P2K). The poster specified this loco was pre-P2K so that would not be an applicable solution in this case.

9

The easy way…would be to pop off the shell, and disconnect the wires. One step further would be to remove the motor and gears.

10

Sounds like an old pancake motor powered loco to me. You’ll need to open the motor casing and take out the armature with the attached toothed gear (sproket) in order to convert it to a dummy. As Stix (wjstix) suggested, you’ll still need a powered loco to pull the dummy.

11

Check with an LHS, the gears in pre P2Ks are likley comperable in size, and can be replaced with Athearn gears. It’s what I used to fix my early P2K BL2, and the set of gears plus a backup was less than 4 bucks.

Actually, having the wheel connected to the motor would cause resistance, and the powered engine would be dragging a full-on deadweight. Try pushing a DC engine whent he trackpower’s off, there’s no spin in the wheels.

12

I agree. And converting a pancake-motored loco to a dummy is a good idea.

Pancake motor = junk.