I thought that the Model Power 4-6-2 tender pickup wires on the tender were electrically sketchy at best. They had a brass pickup tab that bends around each of the tender’s axles. If these axles were not bent just perfectly, electrical conductivity suffered.
The Kato and Bachmann Spectrum tenders have electrical pickup axles bearings on the outside of each tender truck. They are much more electrically reliable. Since I had a Kato tender from an N scale Mikado laying around, I decided to use that tender and adapt it to the Model POwer 4-6-2 Pacific.
I started by taking off the front truck of the tender with a small Phillips-head screwdriver. This allowed me to take off the Kato drawbar too, and this would not be reused on the Model Power Pacific. I then set aside the Kato tender for now.
On the Model Power Pacific, they have four wires going to the tender, orange and grey for the motor, and black and red for the pickup wires. You have to unsolder the orange and grey motor wires from the red and black pickup wires before adding a DCC decoder, otherwise you’ll destroy the decoder. If you’re still on DC, your job is even easier, and you just have to unsolder the pickup connections on the floor of the Model Power tender above each of the tender truck bolster pins. Once those are unsoldered, you should be able to take the tender floor off the electrical connections.
Looking at the Kato tender, remove the weight. Once the weight is removed, there is a plastic piece on the tender floor that protects and keeps in place the electrical connections to the tender. Gently, and I mean gently, spread apart the left and right sides of the tender wall and lift the plastic piece out of the tender. Do this over a table or a brightly lit workbench because the two brass pickup bars will fall out.
You can see how the brass pickup bars are connected to each side of the tender electrical trucks. There are small tabs that extend into the floor of the tender from the trucks on each side that get e
