Here’s another chop, cut, rebuild. A Mantua F7 body on a Proto 2000 FA1 chassis. It was a shotgun wedding. The truck and weight supports inside the body had to be cut out. On the P2K chassis the front coupler pocket had to be removed and the headlight fixture had the be removed. The corners on the front of the frame had to be ground off (1/8" each side) to allow the body to fit. Naturally it runs like a dream. Here’s a photo showing the completed project, if you can get over the trucks that is.
That’s an awful lot of work to get a poorly designed shell on the wrong underframe.
Dave H.
Well, you know what they say. Idle hands. Besides which there was a reason. the Mantua’s Tyco drive was kaput and the body shell for the FA chassis was damaged, so I had a body and made it fit. Now I have a usable loco. Comparing the Mantua shell to an Athearn F7 shell, there’s not much difference. It’s almost as if they came from molds made from the same tooling.
The Life-Like FA chassis has Athearn-style trucks, so it’d be no problem removing the Alco AAR sideframes and putting on Athearn plastic Blomberg sideframes. The Athearn F7A window glass set should also fit the Mantua/Tyco F unit shell.
The P2K FA trucks are longer so the Athearn F7 sideframes don’t fit.
You might be able to get the athearn F7 truck assembly with gears and stuff to get the right trucks. That or make it you own unit.
I think swapping for the whole truck assebly might work. The one on a spare P2K GP30 frame I have fits on an athearn GP35.
I already have two F7’s with AAR trucks. An F7-A for the KCS and an F7-B for the MGRy, Why not add an F7-A with AAR trucks to the MGRy? I’ll have a matched set.
I agree, plus theres a ton of difference between the Mantua and Athearn F7 shells, theres no way ** **** they came from the same mold…
It still looks a lot better than the busted FA shell though.
Of course by the time Jeff buys new trucks or side frames or any of the other things to “rescue” the model, he could have just bought a new FA shell.
Part of the difference is that the FA has 27 foot truck centers and the F7 has 30 ft truck centers, and 3 ft is a noticeable difference. Actually if Jeff had an FT shell (instead of an F7) and mounted the FA underframe so it was as far back to the rear in the shell as he could get, he would be darn close to FT truck spacing, which like the FA had longer spacing from the front coupler to the front truck than from the rear coupler to the rear truck.
Dave H.
I love seeing Jeff’s chop-cut-rebuilds. They’re always cool. Besides, who cares about prototypical accuracy. You make the history. And why waste money on a new FA shell, when this works fine? Can’t wait to see what you do next, Jeff.
The loco has been repainted for the MGRy and has a matching B unit which also has AAR trucks.
Great paint work Jeff.
Some modelers do care about prototypical accuracy. And some choose not to throw more money after bad models, especially when funds are limited. As the old saying goes, “You can find a prototype for everything.” Fortunately, there are some modelers who chose not to model the 20 one of kind examples and stick to modeling more prototypical (and common) units.
On a lighter side, would this be a 'F’rankenstein unit???
Lots of people, actually.
Soo Line’s GP-30’s rode on trucks from traded in Alco FA’s, maybe you could pick up a GP-30 body for cheap at a flea market and try using that instead of the F unit body?? If nothing else, you could tell people that the railroad had an FA whose body was damaged, and it was traded in to GM who used the Alco trucks to construct a replacement F unit.
Seems to me GN or somebody bought FT bodies from GM and used them to rebuild one of their electric engines that had been damaged in a wreck. You could claim the RR bought the body from GM to repair a wrecked Alco FA with.
Exactly. I like Frankenstein units. They’re a specialty of mine. It keeps the junk box from getting too full also. If I remember correctly, I did state in my original post that this is a ‘chop,cut,rebuild’. I know there are a lot of modelers who like to stick to prototype. I was a prototype modeler in my youth but went to freelance ‘free style’ about twenty years ago. Models I do of KCS units are prototype to a point. There’s also some ‘free style’ thrown in on them, with the exception of my model of KCS 666.
Its not necessarily even about “prototype” accuracy.
That horrible line of flash down the center of the nose (and roof), the garish canary yellow horns that are as thick as sewer pipes, the sill steps that are 8" thick, the bulbous headlight casting. No grab irons, no cut levers.
Most of these shortcomings can be fixed with a file, a #76 drill in a pin vise, some .015 brass wire and some time. Whether the model is prototype or freelance, stock or Frankenstein, craftsmanship is craftsmanship. A messy casting is a messy casting.
Dave H.
I’m working on another shell now. It’s from an old Bachmann FT-A that I got back in 99. It’s also going onto an FA chassis.
Can’t wait to see it, Jeff.