Whats under the hood of a brass covered wagon

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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Several here have talked about wanting or desiring a brass model for thier layout. With the great prices seen lately on model, espically older diesels, I thought I would show whats under the hood and how you get inside one of these engine. Our engine today is my late 1988 run, Oriental Limited EMD F3 covered wagon. She was built by Samhongsa in South Korea. Factory can motored(its unmarked but looks like a Mashima flat side can motor), has a basic can interior that I have started to paint in colors other than silver. If you look closely you will see flanges with 2 screws holes on the inside of the upturned shell. Those 4 screws is what hold the fuel tank to the chassis and the chassis to the shell. Thats all you have to do to take the model apart. The small electronic circuit is a constant brightness headlight. I will replace it soon to gain a working Mars light. I had the model apart to put window “glass” on all the windows. I completed that last night and left the model apart while it dried. This is the lead unit of my CZ train I am slowly building. Mike the Aspie

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The only brass diesel I own is a Sunset GP-7 in passenger version. The body is beautiful, but the chassis was awful.

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I repowered it with an Athearn chassis with a NWSL remotor kit. It runs great now. I was going to use an Atlas/Kato mechanism, but I thought that insulating the brass body from the frame would be too difficult.

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-Kevin

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Some of the early brass diesel drives were quite dismal! I try to pick up parts when others repower thiers, so I have spare parts to fix others that still want to run those older and not the best drives. Mike the Aspie