Started working on a NYS&W yellow jacket GP18 project. The starting point was a beater Tenshodo GP20 that I got off ebay cheap. I gave the drive a complete tear down to remove all the old hard grease, silvered the truck side frames. Ran the bare frame thru the dishwasher and repainted semi-gloss black. I reassembled the drive, had to replace the old rubber tube with a new one till I get some more Athearn drive shaft pieces from the LHS. I find using the Athearn drive shaft slip joints work better with less binding in the curves over the stock rubber tube from the motor to the gear tower. She runs pretty quiet, about the same noise as a blue box Athearn unit. She has high miles by the looks of her wheel wear. The main shell is in the stripper can for round 2. First go around removed the clear coat and decals but the base paint was just soft. That vintage paint is some tuff stuff if it isnt flaking off. Cant wait to prime and lay down some yellow paint! Mike
Looks good so far!!
Question, any plans for a can motor?
Nope, no can motor as there is no need to! Motor runs excellent, quiet and smooth, .75amp at full stall and .55 at normal speed, engine is able to take a TCS T1 decoder if I so desire. But my layout is totaly old school, DC analog throttles and blocks. Plus you get that wonderfull ozone and hot oil smell from those old motors. All you have to do is isolate the motor brushes to go DCC. My wifes Alco models RSD7 has a T1 in it with the original KMT open frame motor. Mike
Lucky you! [:D]
I’ve got several brass diesels and the motors have been less than impressive. My Alco models RF16 Sharks were not only noisy, but power hogs. Now they are sporting A-line cans and are much more efficient, just can seem to get rid on the KMT gear noise![;)]
Hopefully the Baldwin DRS 1- 1000 I recently picked up in brass will be better!
Good to see people running brass, and not just letting it rot on a shelf!
I just picked up a Hallmark/KMT drive GP18 that is beautifully pro painted in the Susquehanna yellow jacket colors, it will get a can motor as I have one ready for it and I plan to change the straight cut tower gears for helical cut NWSL gears to see what effect that has on the tower noise. Those tower gears shouldnt be that noisy, Athearn uses straight cut plastic gears in their trucks and most are fairly quiet. The straight cut fiber gears in the Tenshodo drive are much quieter in operation and with only one tower, less of them to make noise. The front truck is driven with a shaft thru the fuel tank area. You can also get a pre-made wheel wiper assembly used on the Grandt line On3 porter steam engine, works great on the 4 axle trucks, just drill and tap a hole in the gear box between the axles and mount the insulated mount. Its already wired and insulated, bend the brass pickup wires as required and cut to length. I run mine on the wheel tread. Here is the part number, 7005. I got mine from the LHS thru Walthers, 6.99 each with 2 needed for each model. That alone makes a huge difference in how the open frame motor runs. You can tell how healthy an open frame is by how strong its magnet is. If the motor runs hot or is sluggish/hard to get started, the magnet is weak and needs replaced. I get small button size neo magnets thru Micro Mark, much cheaper than $50+ can motors in all my brass. Fresh magnets will restore operation to nearly as good if not as good as a modern can motor. Obviousy if the model’s motor has bad vibration when I hold it in my hands and run it on test leads, it gets parted out. I am always getting open frame motors just given to me for free from others that repower everything. So I have a good parts supply, but always looking for more. Mike
I also replaced that rubber tube with a hobbytown of boston drive shaft set up with the horned balls and matching cups. Much smoother operation thru curves, I also adjusted the motor alignment to match the gear tower shaft height. The shell is now bare brass, needs to go thru the dishwasher tomorrow when I wash dishes. That will remove the chemicals that I use to strip it down to bare brass, leaves it extreamly shiny as well! She will rise again soon as a GP18 instead of a GP20. Being unemployed and in school, working on becoming a certified auto/diesel mechainc, leaves little $$ for trains. Another reason I maximize how my open frames run. I could buy another engine many times for what a new can motor costs. Or other stuff for the layout. New pics tomorrow. Mike
I have an Alco Models RS3, it already had the stock motor replaced but it has those standard KMT gear towers - thing is, it’s not noisy at all. I need to gut it and redo some things, the lights and wiring are a mess (it already had a DCC decoder in it, too), and the drive connections were really cobbled together - the rear is Athearn parts and actually works well, the front was a couple of universals that would bind up on curves, so for now I put in a piece of model plane fuel hose and it works well. The front of the motor is really close to teh gear tower, there’s not much room to put proper universals in there and still have enough flex. It’s already painted, too, although it needs some touch up. I have no idea what paint was used, so I may have to just strip it and redo it all - not difficuly since it’s all one color.
–Randy
Randy, I use a stripper can that is normaly used to clean small engine carbs. Made by Gumout or others and found at the local Autozone, Advance Auto ect. Works on my small engine carbs in my shop or to strip a brass model bare. The model will need a trip thru the dishwasher afterwards to clean off all the stuff. After a good soak in the can, a stiff bristle brush and hot water in the sink will remove the paint and leave a very very shiny bare brass model. I then use a white primer from Testors in a rattle can to prep the model for paint, then start with color coats. Unless the model has glued on parts, I bake each coat for 1 hour at 180’ in the oven on a cookie sheet with a piece of foil laid on it to protect the sheet from the paint. After the model cools down, you can mask and do the next color. Only coat I dont bake is the clear finish once decaling is done. The drive shaft coupling from an Athearn F7 might work in your RS3, it uses a four pronged mount on the worm/truck gear tower shaft, and a 4 slotted coupler that snaps on the flyhweel or standard Athearn worm gear quick connect piece. That is the normal set up I use in close quarters like Tenshodo drives or situations like yours. Mike
Spent some time in the workshop, installed the extra power pickups, now she has 8 wheel pickup. On Tenshodo trucks, I mount them using the side frame screws, I replace the stock shouldered screw with one long enough to retain the pickup assembly. On some Tenshodos, you dont have to grind a slot in gear box casting to clear the screw head on the new pickup assembly, on this one I had to take the burr in the dremel and grind out a slot on one side of each truck gear box casting to allow the new power pickup’s mounting screw to fit without putting the wheelsets in a bind. In the second picture, you can see the new drive shaft and completed power truck. Last pic shows the stripped shell sitting on the painted chassis. Turbo stack is gone, mounting holes soldered shut and filed smooth. Hole drilled in cab roof for Prime Stratolite digital beacon casting. Need to get Details West spark arrestor castings to mount up where the stacks would be. Most all my Susquehanna GP18 pics show all 3 units with the round arrestors in place during the era with the digital beacons on the roof. Cheers Mike
I love yellow jackets, so much so that I painted and detailed one even though I don’t model the SusyQ. The body is a Rail Power Products shell. I bent the handrails using brass wire.
Steve S
I had fun with yellow jackets in June and July…the real stingy kind. They somehow found a way into the ceiling of my basement. I couldn’t even go to the basement without them coming into the basement once the lights came on. After three cans of commercial killer and two visits from the exterminator I found the hole they were coming into the sheetrock through, opened the garage door so i had an escape route, poked a broom handle in it and enlarged the hole and then hit it with part of another can of killer. After four assaults by enlarging the hole and blasting them, I finally got rid of them and their nest. Now I have a hole in the ceiling and dead yellow jackets on everything in the basement, including the layout.
Dang that looks nice!! I should have you build me one! I can only hope mine come out that nice. What yellow did you use for yours? Mike
Thanks. It was a long time ago. I think I just mixed my own yellow till it was close. One of the problems is that when I was looking at photos of yellow jackets, some of them looked like lemon yellow, while others were more like orange-yellow (this was before digital cameras were common.) I think yellow was difficult for film developers to process consistently.
Steve S
Mike
The progress looks great, can’t wait to see the finished product!![:D]
Here is a new pic, I went ahead and remotored it with a round Mashima can motor mounted on a brass bracket. I even removed the Tenshodo name plate from the old motor and put it on the new motor, looks almost like it was done this way from the factory now. I am on the hunt for one of the pre-DCC era circuits that simulates the Prime digital beacons. Emrex Electronics made one and the early Hyperlite circuits had this ablity. Richmond controls does this still, but there is quite the waiting list for one of his circuits. I know where there is a white strobe light circuit from Hyperlite but havent found any for the Prime beacon. The white strobes would work if I was doing this engine in the grey TP&W lightning stripe scheme. I dont want to go the DCC route. I am considering another paint scheme other than the yellow jacket. There is a little shortline out east, the Central New England RR, that runs a GP20 and a GP9 as thier road power. Thier GP20 is also an ex-ATSF unit but still has most all of its ATSF features such as the AC unit on the roof, antenna ground plane off the back of the AC unit, and the rubber feet are still on the roof for the beacon it no longer has. I am waiting to see if Highball Graphics are willing to add this new line to thier growing decal selection for eastern shortlines. MIke
Here are pics of my main engine, just arrived today from Howie’s brass out in Pennsylvania. Kudos to him for excellent prices on his brass. I changed out the drive shafts, swapped in axles with metal gears as one of the original ones was split, a typical Kumata drive issue. I do plan on a can motor swap in this weekend. I added the Prime beacon light. Whoever did the paint work added the spark arrestors, speed recorder on the #2 axle and did a super job on the paint work. I also upgraded her to 8 wheel power pickup with the Grandt Line pickup assemblies, one per truck. I drilled the gear box, added a slight taper with my hobby knife and screwed in the screw supplied with the power pick. Then just adjust the wiper wires to have just a little pressure on the wheel tread, to much makes the gears really whine due to the added drag. Cheers Mike