Probably easy to stick with them.[:-angel]

RE: Hobbytown, here is my early 1970s Alco FA/FB pair:









Great machine that will pull like the Boraxo 20 mule team...sure doesn't hold a candle to current day appearance wise.

The Kentucky Southern shop forces doesn't have patience enough for that paint scheme, either. This set was painted with Floquil I expect and the white striping was from a Champ Decals NYC set.

K9~,

Wow, I forgot about the drawbar slug type tank drives!

Wow even tho I've never owned one, you gotta admit they're pretty cool.

I bet that pair will pull your car out of the snow.

Thanx Thom...

Nice set of engines. Definitely NYC lighting stripe. Wonder how they got it the faded green paint. Painted?

I like that slug set up too. Like I said before, I'd like to try that with an A-B-A set of engines with a big 7 pole or 9 pole coreless in the B unit. What I don't like about those shafts is how large they are. I've been looking at how to make them smaller.

Bernd

This is an intriguing topic, and very timely for me. I recently purchased a Tenshodo GP-9 that has a tank drive that I plan to restore.




So I'll definitely be following along.

Ok brothers & sisters,

My next question is:

What to do with a brass tank diesel when not packed properly?

Don't be fooled here!




1) Front pilot & railings completely pushed in.




2) Rear pilot & railings completely pushed in.




3) First I grit blast the damaged areas, then bent back and re-soldered front pilot and railings.




4) Next I grit blast the rear pilot damaged areas and re-soldered.




5) Spray test fit the deck back on frame and checked the alignments and any imperfections.




6) Once satisfied with alignments It’s time to improve the model. (yup, there’s always room for improvements).



7) First thing to address was to pack the tank with lead weights and remove any material that interferes with the drive shaft.



8) I made sure the tank ends didn’t interfere on even the tightest curves light 18” radius’.




9) I even sanded down the pins on the U-joints (which is really what was hitting at first).



10) Next I went ahead and grit blasted tank and repaint with 3 different black paints and then added several layers of weathering and fuel decals and sealed the tank.




11) Plenty of textured weathering and highlights added.



12) Because the tank ends had material removed, I didn’t have to bother with all the tank brackets and such. (yeah!)



13) Next I did the same with the frame, grit blast and before laying down 3 blacks I first laid in some rusty dirt color and did a salt technique for some peeling paint on the side frames.



14) I think this process came out pretty good (for most likely not being seen to much once the model is completed. Ha.



15) On the trucks, I first grit blasted clean and repaired a couple loose (glued repaired) journals. Then I painted with the same rusty dirt paint and salt technique with silver top coat and some dry pigments.



16) Next I needed to sand down the truck screws so I could add the PC board/copper pickups (of course the gear boxes wear cleaned and shimmed ) before this final assembly stage.




17) Here is what the completed/mounted truck all wheel pickups look like.



18) A couple temporary soldered on jumpers for the tracking/articulation test run. (note: this pic is out of sequence), but it’s my first operational test run nonetheless.




19) Moving right along here with the upper walkway frame, I’ve stripped and repainted, decal with weathering added.



20) Note: I even gave some decals to the control stand (knowing they most likely will never be seen (but we now know they’re there. *right!



21) I even gave the boot traffic wear pattern weathering on the cab floor. (again we all now know the details are here also.




22) Because I’m a nut I even detailed the control stand face area as well (think surprise here later).




23) Here: besides the underframe weathering, I also carefully drilled out the front truck light housings for adding a couple lights here (remember I’m a modeling nut).




24) Here we see I mounted the quick plug wires and the resistors for the truck lights and cab gauge lights. (the tape was where I was going to originally mount the board, and of course the damn thing accidentally stuck to my limited decal stripes and I couldn’t save them).



25) Now with the wire leads temporary soldered so I can DC test the lights on the control stand (remember the surprise from before)? Can you say- he’s a nut!



26) With the lights off and the lights on full.



27) With the lights off and the lights on dim.




28) With the lights lows here’s another angle.



29) Next the shell was grit blasted and the 1st color was applied on the upper sides.




30) Next the top received the same 3 black paints and the salt technique in between coats.



31) I decided to go back and give the yellow a second color with the salt technique as well.



32) I cleared sealed the shell at this point.




33) While there’s no reason to paint the inside of the long hood, I did give the cab the traditional green paint.



34) Now I started experimenting with a couple speakers (this is what I find to be usually the hardest part of any Dcc install) in trying to get the biggest base sound I can.



35) After spending the best parts of my life sanding down both the inside of the shell and sides of the speaker box, I finally fit (eureka).



36) Next challenge is trying to fit all the wires, wires and wires in! Hummm ,sometimes one should cut their losses.




37) I took out all the bulbs and changed over to nano Led’s and motor winding wires, wires, and still more wires. (Funny thing is, I cheated and left out 10 more Led’s because the decoder I have didn’t have enough circuits to handle all those lights).




38) Ohhh! Much better! (Second time’s a charm) and I opted for a cell phone speaker with baffle.




39) At this point, a test fit is always a good thing!



40) Now I can see where this rebuild is going… (front view).



41) Rear view…




42 Side view… (with all decals on & sealed).



43) Lights! Camera!



44) Lights Galore! Notice the burnt out/newer bulbs in the number boards.




45) Engineer side view at room light.



46) Engineer side view at night.




47) Rear in room light. Notice the burnt out/newer bulbs in the number boards.



48) Done with a full 5 man crew added.




I hope this pictorial of a 1983 Overland Models Inc. Tank Drive Rebuild gives a few Ideas on how to keep in play an older brass Diesel tank drive.

Thanx Thom…

Looks nice, Thom. Thanks for the step-by-step.

Excellent rework/rebuild Thom. Thanks for sharing your processes.

Jim

Excellent rebuild. That's quite an interesting tank drive. I like the individual gear boxes on the trucks.

I've been working on a design in my head. I want to build up a whole system from scratch. But that won't happen till I get the quarry structures done and after the summer, fall season is upon us. I'll have lots of spare time at the summer camp with pencil and paper working up the drive system.

Hope to see more of your projects. Very inspiring.

Bernd

Hi all,

I'm glad this was helpful to some. I made a short sound/light test video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPIhepJ5vxE

I hope to see others finish result here as well.

Thanx Thom...

Looks good. Way, more lights than I’d try.

Thom, check your PM.

Jim

Thanks Jim- I did. T...

Karl,

I will say, it was a lot more work than I thought it would be prior to starting, but I'm sure I'll do more in the future (because I'm stupid) :erm: for I understand the newer decoders have two more light functions added now as standard.

Thanx Thom...