The story of four medium sized Rio Grande locos

[Schraddel]

Hello,
here in this thread i describe in a nutshell the converting of 4 D&RGW to running condition in terms of DCC and sound.


The beginning was several years earlier when i purchased this Rio Grande Mikado. No Narrow Gauge, it's Standard Gauge D&RGW class K59.
A nice model mady by Samhongsa an imported by Key, has a simple boiler backhead, but still a open frame motor. It was also affected by the notorious red foam and therefor stained. This was also the reason to get it much cheaper. I thought that red staining does'nt matter because the modell will be painted lateron.





The open frame motor was removed ...





... and replaced by an Faulhaber coreless coil motor. The drive shaft is configured out og NWSL parts.





Electric cable harnesses were made in loco ...





... and tender.





Improved current pick ups.





Tender





The bell was rearward angled. Bell and bellframe were one castpiece. I disliked the angled bell.





The bell was cut out with a thin saw blade in a motor tool.





And resoldered in a normal position.





Front and rear light were cored an equipped with 0603 type LEDs of warm white tone.
In this stage the model remains several years.
Until January this year. At a Fremo meeting the decision was made to put the loco into working condition für the Fremo meeting in Riesa.





The loco hat to be painted therefor. The running gear was disassembled for brush painting by hand.





Loco and tender shell should be painted pro by airbrush.





Back from the paint shop.





The cab was glassed and a crew added.





Even the doghouse was glassed.





As decoder the brand new Econami 100 Steam was elected and paired with this Zimo Speaker. There are 2 Sugar Cubes in a relative 3-d printed box. Initially intended for G-Scale, and the 2 speakers are in series and have an impedance of 16 Ohms. This makes the speaker compatible to the Tsunami which needs speakers with a mimum impedance of 8 Ohms.
After some CV adjusting ( RTFM!) and familiarising with the new decoder and it's functions and thereof resulting possibilities, it sounds and runs simply great.
The notorius lurching when starting can be completely shut down to non-existent. Even with coreless coil motors no jerking und lurching.






The final test running was at the Fremo meeting in Mannheim between the sessions. The police in Clearwater Industries was not interested, they were distracted of chasing the Blues Brothers.

This was the first chapter

Cheers Lutz

[Schraddel]

Second Chapter

A friend of mine saw the K-59 Mikado running and sounding and impulsively decided he has need for a K-59 too. Two weeks before he has purchased an D&RGW Pacific type brass loco which looks very similar, Rio Grande classified these 4-6-2s in the P-44 class. He came towards to me with this little Pacific to get it converted to DCC. I examimated this loco what to do with and impulsively decided i have need for one P-44 too.
We had great luck as there was just a "cattle cycle" with this particular brass locos and we found a wide choice of the models simultaneosly on the market for brass models. So we made our choices and a further K-59 and also a P-44 made the way across the big pond.





This is my bargain choice out of the relatively widespreading offerings. The loco was painted an decaled and this job was pretty done. Even the cab was glassed. The front headlight was cored and a micro bulb place into it.
The only thig i did here was painting the wheel rims and the edgs of the running boards white according to prototype photos.

So decoders, speakers, and a replacement motor fpr the K-59, which still had a open frame, were ordered.





When all the ordered parts were delivered i started what i have never done before, a simultaneous converting of 3 locos.
Upper the P-44 of my friend.
Middle the P-44 of mine.
Below the K-59 of my friend.
Both P-44 Pacifis retained their original Sagami motors as there were very good runners. The rubber tubes were replaced by articulated drive shafts with unversal joints, configurated out of A-Line parts (i ran out of NWSL parts).
The K-59 Mikado, here the open frame motor was replaced by an 1830 Mashima can motor. the drive shaft were also from A-Line.
All gear boxes were removed, demounted, all of the old sticky grease was cleaned out, new fresh greas filled in, all bearings proper oiled and all was reassembled.
For all three locos torque levers for the gearbox were made.





The multiple chaos on it's way. Here the current pick ups for locos and tenders were made.





Much chaoting with all black wires and inscrutable parts.





Some progress is visible.





The Mikado has plastic brake shoes and there is no hassle with avoiding shorts.





The two Pacifis were more finicking. Here the brake shoes were all brass and not insulated, so i had to grab deeper into my bag of tricks.
At least at all three locos, all of the drivers and all of the tender wheels got current pick up wipers.





Here the tender trucks of the unpainted Pacific got wipers.





The wire loom for the tenders is made, here representatively shown on the unpainted tender.





Headlight and back up light on the tender were coiled and tiny warm white 0402 type LEDs installed. I used here the ones with the ultra thin flexible stranded wire with Teflon insulating.
The main frame was painted matte black, especially the section behind the drivers. So they have not to be revoved when painting the loco.

To be continued

Cheers Lutz

[doctorwayne]

Nicely done, Lutz!

Wayne

[Schraddel]

Oh Wayne tank you, but not so early not so early, i am still not yet finished.





All three running gears. In the foreground the K-59 Mikado with it's Mashima 1830 can motor. Here it was not so simple to get this motor into the outer firebox. This motor is a very smooth runner because of it's 5-pole skew wounded armature, but it represents the absolute maximum seize (18mm x 30mm) squeezeable under the boilershell. I had to "shave" the inner part of the firebox to remove all the inner extending parts of the details and cut them flush with the sheet wall. Also i had to file some of the motor casing at the rear end so that it fit against the forward slanted boiler backhead. A little bit narrower and you have to use a shoehorn to mount the boilershell onto the running gear.
Above the motor, there are plug sockets for front lights and in my case (middle loco) planned cab interior lights. The cabs of the P-44's are full detailed. My friend did'nt want it, so there are front lights only.





All three locos got plugs at the very end of the wires. Thus reducing the multiple chaos of black wires somewhat. The shrinking tube is for insulation purposes and to get a sort of handle for the tiny plugs.
For each of the locos i reserved a separate little plastic box with lids. All the tiny screws and other small parts of each loco will be stored here during work in progress (or not). This avoids, as fas as possible, Murphy's laws according vanishing small parts into the universe...

All three tenders got the same electrical equipment as i described in my first posting in this thread.
My friend wanted his locos equipped with Soundtraxx Econami Steam sound decoders in combination with Zimo speakers, also as shown in the first posting.





My friends K-59.





Both K-59s. And here i worked with JMRI Decoder Pro and simply copied all of the decoder's CVs just from one decoder to the other decoder. That is a very easy task for you were the PC will make the work. Afterward the locos run simlutaneous.





But when running my frieds K-59 alone without sound, there was a growling to hear. As origin was found, the gearbox emitted this noise. And when i stopped the running loco by means of my hand putting into the loco's way, there was a loud and nasty "Krrrrrrrrr" noise to hear, the loco stopped of course and the drivers did stop also rotating and did'nt turn anymore.





The reason was a not correct meshing between idler gear and axle gear. Thus enabling the teeth of both spur gears to slip over each other. This interruped the flux of force, the loco driver came to a standstill and the noise emerged. No, no GERN flux will help here.
The cause was a slightly worn gear cover. As the gears have a very fine gear module (0.3) only a little wear or bending of the gear cover causes too much axle play and this resulting an incorrect mesh. Here in this case it was a mixture of very slightly bending and wear.
To fix it sustainable i soldered two little stripes of 0.15mm bronze sheet onto the worn areas. Then the repair sheets were grinded untill the axle play was near "0", but the axle also was rotating freely. The mesh is now correct and the gearbox runs smooth and quiet.







Here pictures of remounting the valve gears. Don't forget these tiny washers.





My own P-44 Pacific was equipped with one of the brand new Soundtraxx Tsunami2 sound decoders. There are some extra features and possibilities compared against the Econami. Not yet all possibilties tested.





My friend's unpainted P-44 will get it's sound decoder after painting. All the test running was made with an non sound decoder. Also this loco is prepared to make a quick plug-in installation of decoder and speaker.





Both Pacifis.
That is temporarily the end of the task for me. What has still to be done is adjusting and fine tuning of the Tsunami2 of my P-44, but this will be better posted in the DCC departement of this forum.

Thank you for watching.

Cheers Lutz