Kind of a crazy question but nonetheless here goes. How hard is it to swap out motors and gears between two locomotives. One being a six axle and the other being a four axle.
Currently my four axle loco runs the exact speed as my others do but I only use it for switching while my six axle loco which I planned on using for consists is too slow to do so. I want to swap out motors and gears to speed my six axle up and thus would slow down my four axle.
How much of a challenge would it be and would this plan help me achieve my goal. These two locos are both from the same manufacturer and they are HO Scale, also I shuld mention that the six axle is DCC ready and the four axle is not.
Will
What brand are they, and what types of locomotives are they (besides just 4 and 6 axle)? If they’re the same brand, it might be possible. But in most cases, it isn’t.
It’s possible but a lot of the probabilities of it getting done is going to depend on your manual dexterity. If the only problem is the motor then that is not really too difficult. The major problem is the worm/worm gear and the gearing within the trucks. It seems highly unlikely that these two units are from the same manufacturer; axles are constructed to individual manufacturers specifications and are not always interchangable between makes. And remember, somewhere or another you are going to have to find two extra axles to power your CC unit.
Your statement:
infers that these others are of the same make as the four axle unit but the six axle unit you are attempting to speed match is of a different manufacturer. You might toy around with units to see if it is not possible to get the power mechanism from one of those others to fit under the deficient six axle unit. If so problem is solved!!!
Of course, you can solve this whole problem as is by converting to DCC whose prime reason for being is to enable you to match speed envelopes between units of different manufacturer.
How much of a challenge would it be and would this plan help me achieve my goal. These two locos are both from the same manufacturer and they are HO Scale, also I shuld mention that the six axle is DCC ready and the four axle is not.
This would imply that the 4 axle loco is somewhat older than the 6 axle one, so there are some things that need to be determined.
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Are the motors identical or is the motor in the newer loco visibly different? A newer motor might turn at a lower RPM than the older motor for a given track voltage.
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Are the gear ratios the same? Just off the top of my head, the answer is probably yes since there really isn’t much to be gained altering gear ratios if the original ratio generated an acceptable speed curve.
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You mentioned that the 6 axle loco was DCC ready, which means it has a printed circuit board. It’s entirely possible that one or more of the circuits in the PC board is wired in series with the motor. Depending on the components in those circuits, the “problem” just may be that the voltage applied to the motor in this case is lower than that which the 4 axle’s motor has at its disposal for a given track voltagel. This certainly would account for the different speed curves.
The first principle of troubleshooting is to ask “what’s different?”. In this case, the most obvious answer is that the 6 axle unit is equipped with an item (PC board) not present on the 4 axle unit. That’s where I would start. I would assume that the 6 axle unit is equipped with lights given the PCB. However, those should be wired in parallel with the motor and shouldn’t affect running to any great degree. You might want to pull the PCB and hardwire the motor to see if this makes its speed curve more compatible with the 4 axle unit.
Given that both units are from the same manufacturer, I think it’s a reasonable assumption that the motors and gearing are the same and that the different speed curves are more likely exp