It is feasible to convert an older (non-DCC ready) diesel to use as a non-powered dummy. Being out of the hobby for over 15 yrs, I find converting older locos to DCC is daunting.
Is it possible to remove motor and drive shafts? or do I have to replace the trucks as well (worried about rolling resistance).
Thanks
Alan
Yeah, you can do that.
I’ve done 2 of these myself. Both were older Athearns. They were 40+ year old Hi-F drives, the old rubber band units. Since the old rubber bands had long since rotted out, all I did was remove the dead-weight motors.
For gear-drive, you will need to take apart the trucks and remove the first gears back from the wheels. This will allow the wheels to spin freely. If you don’t the wheels will either not spin at all, or will have a lot of resistance since you’re pushing all that dead gear weight around and around.
But, how good are the engines? Do they still run well on DC? Is the detail level something you still like, or do they look like poor stepchildren next to today’s engines? If you have a decent-running unit, conversion to DCC isn’t all that hard. I would buy one decoder, like a TCS T-1, and give it a try. TCS has a “goof-proof” warrantee on the decoder, and they’ll replace a dead one even if it’s your fault. For the few dollars it will cost, you may end up giving new life to an old friend.
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be impossible to remove the motor and drive shafts. I don’t know about replacing the trucks. If I was to do it, I would leave the existing trucks, but remove the gears inside the truck towers. Of course, leave the gears the axles are attached to.
Will
I had a old Bachman engine, and made it a dummy. I just took out the motor and driveshaft. Will it ever be a useable engine again, probably not. It has the metal wheels, which I like rather than the plastic ones. Its also pretty heavy due to the extra weight it had. Thats the biggest problem.
You can remove the motor and worm gear on the top of the truck if its a 8 wheeldrive unit for now and give it a try. There are some that are putting in sound decoders in dummy engines to make use of them also. With motor gone, drive shafts, and worm gears, you might have the room for installing a sound decoder and speaker.
I have done this with older BB Athern kits, making dummy units out of them, and Atlas units also. The thing is to keep the parts so you change it back original later if you want. I really don’t see a reason to swap out the trucks.
Kato GP-35s still in the box after 17 year; pair of Conrails
Found a reference in the DigiTrax manual that illustrates the steps required.
The other is an Atlas GP-7 similiar vintage; also Conrail.
Thanks for the hin on TCS
Thanks for the insight. Doubt they would go back to powered.
Joe Fugate has a great idea, that I’m going to do, is he takes a dummy unit and adds a sound decoder and a speaker and runs the engine in the middle of his consist. This way the lash-up has sound only in the middle engine which is plenty of sound for all of them. This saves a lot of money too. You do have to make sure the dummy unit has metal wheels though which is far better anyway for sound or not since they look real and have less static than the plastic wheels.