You guys ever see a drive unit like this? Yes, that’s an open frame motor you see. The chassis frame is two pieces, upper and lower, the drive line is somewhat like Athearn, with metal gears.
Believe it or not, this is the chassis of a thirty year old Bachmann that I recently converted to DCC. It was made in Germany in the 70’s and I’ve seen very few like it.
My first guess was Bachmann, before I even read your text beneath the picture. I remember in the very early seventies they produced some 8 wheel drive diesels that had metal handrails like Athearn’s, and a guy I knew at the time was singing their praises. The next thing I knew everything was being produced in Hong Kong, and their diesels were department store cheapies with one pancake motored truck. Apparently they weren’t in production long.
I had no idea they were made in Germany, of all places. Is it a GP38?
Close, it’s a GP40. It too originally had metal handrails all around. Only the front ones are left now. I have a more modern shell on it now, with plastic handrails
I think the engine he had was a U-Boat in the Auto Train scheme, IIRC. I think Cox also offered diesels with metal handrails in the early 70’s, but I don’t know what the drives were like.
Is it a 5 pole motor? How does it run?
Yes, it is a 5 pole motor. On regular DC it ran very fast and had no crawl capability, but on DCC it runs very well, at a believable speed and can crawl with the best of them. I don’t know what company made the motor, I’ve never been able to find a name on it. The one that comes closest was made by Mehano and Mehano brushes fit it almost perfectly.
The Cox diesels that were offered were simply Athearn locomotives that were made with the Cox name on them and packaged in Cox boxes. This is the reason that the drive lines were alike.
Actually only the first Cox locos were Athearn. After that they made their own locos and cars. These went to walthers - the low nose geep is Cox tooling as well as some of the frieght cars Walthers sells.
Right. Athearn made them from 1971 to 1975 when Cox moved their production overseas for the 1975 product line. The Athearn produced Cox line included the F-7A and B; GP-35; SW-1500; U28-C; PA-1; and Hustler locomotives. Rolling Stock produced by Athearn for Cox included the 40’ Box Car; 50’ Plug Door Box Car; 40’ Reefer; 40’ Box Car -Grain Loading; 40’ Hopper; 40’ Cattle Car; 3-Dome Tank Car; 62’ Tank Car; Single-Dome Tank Car; 50’ Gondola -Covered; 50’ Gondola -Open; Caboose -Cupola Type; Caboose -Bay Window Type; 50’ Auto Box Car; and Athearn’s Streamline Passenger Cars. The only items that weren’t dropped in 1975 were the PA-1 locomotive and the streamline passenger cars, available in Southern Pacific only. By 1976, Cox had ended it’s association with Athearn. In 1977 or 78, Model Power had purchased the Cox HO train line and its accessories. Former Cox items have turned up in the AHM product line of the early 1980s and later in Walthers’ Trainline products of the 1990’s.
I decided it was time to remotor this beast. I had planned on using a Mashima motor but couldn’t find one in my parts box. I did however find a PPW motor that I had gotten to remotor a 4 axle switcher, which I never got around to doing. Removing the old open frame motor was easy enough. It was getting the can motor to go in that was the tough part. It took a little grinding, a little coaxing, some kind words and some glue to get it place, but it’s done. It’s a shotgun wedding if ever there was one, but it’s a 300% improvement. The locomotive used to hitch (jerk) when going from low speed to high speed. No longer. Now it’s a smooth acceleration from low speed to high speed. And it’s much quieter. Before it sounded like a small pepper mill. Now it’s almost silent.
I have one similar to that one and is probably a little older. It originally was an ATSF F- unit. Weighs a ton. Still runs. Most definitely needs a good cleaning and lube.
I was considering scrapping it, but after seeing your results, maybe there is some hope for it after all.
Well ok after all that what was the motor Jeff? I have about 20 different old motors lying around here and I didn’t see one real close to what you had. J.R.
The old motor didn’t have any brand name on it, but the closest it comes to from ones I’ve seen on the net is one of the old Mehano motors. The new one is from Power Point West. It was in a repower kit I got for a four axle switcher.