I’m in the process of setting up my workbench so that I can restore old non working locomotives back to working condition complete with DCC decoders and sound.
I’ve got a fair bit of stuff from my RC days (soldering irons, screwdrivers of all shapes and sizes, tweezers, dremel etc), but I need to enhance it with some specific tools for model railroad work.
So far I’ve identified that I’d need:
A Rolling Road (DCC Concepts do an excellent one in the UK)
A DCC Tester Board (Something like the ESU 51900)
Can anyone think of anything else I might need, especially when troubleshooting the motor?
which has scads of old equipment diagrams and some technical info on old (and no so old) models. There are other online resources that have greater focus on this or that model or manufacturer but I have found nothing but nothing to challenge HO Seeker for overall scope. I am not a toy train guy but I suspect there are similar websites out there for Lionel and Flyer repairs.
I think you also need to do some study about open frame motors. One of the risks of doing work on them is causing a loss of magnification. In fact your repair work may be dealing with the mistake a prior owner made in taking apart their motor. A remagnification capability might be in order particularly now that open frame motors are less common and thus a simply remotoring for some models may not be practicable. This is by no means exhaustive but this website (which is also interesting in other ways) http://www.irwinsjournal.com/a1g/a1glocos/mtmotors.html
offers, just as a sample of what I am talking about, this discussion
The plastic front bushing plate/brush retainer can now be removed. This is done by slightly spreading the magnet pole pieces
Nut drivers for the smaller sizes, especially 2-56
Real soldering iron, 150 Watts or more.
Volt-Ohm meter. (VOM)
Heat gun for shrinking heat shrink tubing.
Gear/Wheel puller.
A vice.
A drill press is nice to have. Not essential but nice.
A test track/run-in track. A few lengths of flex track fastened to a piece of 1 by 2 lumber.
Ordinary DC power pack. Cheap train set left over will do fine.
An airbrush is nice but not essential. I paint all my steamers with a rattle can of dark gray auto primer.
Clamps and alligator clips.
DCC decoder test jig. There was a make your own article on a recent Model Railroader. It had an LED on each decoder output. You used an ordinary DCC throttle to order the decoder to go forwards and backwards and toggle all the aux outputs and watched the LEDs to see that the decoder was responding.
I would only buy tools as you come to a project that needs them. This way you collect the tools that get used, rather than all the nice looking stuff in the Micro Mark catalog. Try to remember that your object is to work on locomotives, not become a collector of tools.
a way to keep parts from getting lost (apron or towel on your lap)
a cloth/foam cradle to hold the locos
a digital camera to take “before” and “in progress” pics so you can put the loco back together properly.
a list of items of what you want to do to the loco while its open. May sound silly, but I suspect most of us have closed up a loco only to recall they forgot to solder this or oil that…
a determination of when it is not worth the time/trouble/money to refurbish a specific loco.