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Glen, the FM shell mounts the same way, thank you. seeing I bought the shell second hand I didn't know about the two brass tabs, I will have to make a set when the time comes.

Thanks for following everyone.
Bear I appreciate the photo of the drivetrain, it will come in Handy
Andy, I'm glad I was able to help you out.
As for the Alco Blunt Trucks, I haven't been able to find any for the older (metal side frame) or newer (plastic side frame) athearn trucks. Are they even available?

cnrglen Wrote:As for the Alco Blunt Trucks, I haven't been able to find any for the older (metal side frame) or newer (plastic side frame) Athearn trucks. Are they even available?

Don't think Athearn ever made ALCO Blunt trucks not making any ALCO switchers. In HO Atlas & Bachmann make the only ones available. Going to try & put a Cary shell on both of those. Had a Cary SW1500 shell on an Athearn SW chassis & it could pull tons!

I was just wondering if there was an aftermarket set available, if not, I'll just live with these.

Getting back to this project. I started to fit the new mashima motor to the chassis:

Clearly I have some issues. I'll probably have to machine the chassis out to fit the motor.

I've marked the areas that have to be removed. Fortunately I do have a small drill press that I can do the larger cuts first, then cleanup with my Drexel.

If you mount the motor flat, instead of upright, you'll have less material to remove.

Wayne

I want to watch you machine out the chassis with a Q-tip, tweezers, and a small drill.

I bet you would, luckily I'm not that into torturing myself.

I'd love to lay the motor flat an eliminate all the machining, but the motor will be too wide to fit under the shell that way.

cnrglen Wrote:....I'd love to lay the motor flat an eliminate all the machining, but the motor will be too wide to fit under the shell that way.

DOH!! I forgot that it's a switcher.

Here's another Mashima motor in an Athearn frame, although the motor looks longer than yours...



I don't recall having to do much machining at all, and I did four similar ones, although they were for use with Athearn body shells.
Since I don't have much in the way of machinery for such tasks, it would have been done with a cut-off disc and perhaps a coarse mill file.

Wayne

I managed to carve out the chassis tonight:

It took about an hour, using my drill press, and dremel tool. It took about 5 cut off discs (exploding) before I found my reinforced ones, and a small router. When I do the next one I'll be more prepared.

now the motor sits flat with the shafts at pretty much to same height as the truck shafts. Now I've got to figure out the universals. I'm hoping that the athearn ones will still fit, with or without the flywheels.
This motor is a bit shorter than yours, Wayne. I have a second motor that's a bit longer for the other model and that is probably the same one that you have.

I started to fit the drive into the engine tonight but discovered that the motor was too short. I could have used it if I had some longer universal joints. Fortunately I had the longer one that Wayne has.

and it fit just fine:

I used some adapters and a flywheel from a Proto Power kit. I decided on only one flywheel as I need the room on the other side for the motor leads. The motor hasn't been cemented in yet, as are the adapters aren't either since I need the motor leads soldered on before I can continue.
Of course the chassis had to be re-modified to fit the longer motor:

It's a good thing Athearn designed the chassis fairly robust as I had to get drastic to fit the motor and flywheel.

lajry Wrote:

cnrglen Wrote:As for the Alco Blunt Trucks, I haven't been able to find any for the older (metal side frame) or newer (plastic side frame) Athearn trucks. Are they even available?

Don't think Athearn ever made ALCO Blunt trucks not making any ALCO switchers. In HO Atlas & Bachmann make the only ones available. Going to try & put a Cary shell on both of those. Had a Cary SW1500 shell on an Athearn SW chassis & it could pull tons!

I can't speak for the CN units, but CP swapped the Blunt and AAR trucks as needed.
The Blunt type had issues and was prohibited in some areas.
When I worked at the Drake St. Roundhouse there was an occasional unit with one of each!

I have a friend who will be installing the DCC in the engine soldering the lower motor lead so while he's got the motors I'll work on the other chassis.
One another note:

I managed to track down a set of Alco blunt truck sideframes. They are a direct replacement with the stock Athearn plastic sideframes.
As I only have one set of the newer trucks, I'll have to find another set if I want to change both engines over.

Continuing with the project.

I got the larger mashima motor back with the lower lead soldered on. Before installing the drivetrain I painted the chassis black, making sure to mask off the electrical contact areas. The flywheel and universals are secured with Loctite and the motor has a bead of clear silicon under it.

As for the other chassis, I found this inexpensive motor from China (1.50 with free shipping) that fit right in. It's just narrow enough to fit under the hood of the shell and it has both contacts on the top. I have an identical motor running my doddlebug project and it works just fine on DCC.

I will have to build a mount for it to shim it up a bit so the universals are in line with the truck shafts. But other than that I'm confident that it will do the job.