4052 loco with PRR tender

[playmofire]

I am also missing the tank cover off of mine, as well as one of the front baffle panels.  3d printing may be the future on these as we get farther and farther away from when they were in production.

So when it comes to it, Tim, we already have a multiple order for the tank cover!

It has been suggested that the tank cover may be the same size or very close to the same size as a number of LGB ones, which would provide another source.  I'll let you know which LGB items might work once I find out.

[csimas]

Nice buy, that train is superb equalizing whit the steaming mary  and it can pull a lottt of wagons.

[playmofire]

Time for a brief update.

All parts which can be put through the dishwasher have been through it.

Everything is dissassembled as a result and cleaning and polishing has started.

I started with the tender and one side has been finished. Removing the old stickers left a "ghost" of the lettering on the side, but a good polish with T-Cut, followed by two polishes with Turtle Wax car polish, another two rubbings with T-Cut and then five polishes with Turtle Wax has left one side of the tender nice and bright and polished and no "ghosting". The other side is next and then the rest of the tender doesn't need a lot of cleaning and polishing.

I have noticed that a handle on the boiler back has broken off (maybe it's there to open the firebox door) and so I will carefully drill a hole and insert the top of a Playmobil broom handle cut to length and paint it black.

I may also add a flickering LED to the firebox at this stage too.

[playmofire]

In the last few days as tine allowed I've been doing a bit of work on the tender coupling.

Junker Jorg suggested that trying to glue the broken coupling loop on wouldn't be a long term solution and that a nut and bolt job was the answer. (He had had a local blacksmith make a loop for him.) To start with, I looked at curved drawer handles of the right size, but most of these were fixed by screwing from behind and this was not possible. A reference on another forum to meccanspares.com made me think of making a coupling loop out of Mecanno and so I ordered the parts I needed (I've put in two orders and both were delivered the following day).

The first thing to do was to cut off the remains of the original coupling loop ( photo 1) and then mark out where the Meccano replacement would go and do a test fit (photo 2). The third picture shows the Meccano coupling bolted into place.

[playmofire]

I did the final fitting in a hurry and fitted the coupling loop higher than intended. Originally (photo 1) I meant to have about 2mm vertical clearance between the bottom of the Meccano and the top of the support of the coupling hook on the loco, but nw there's much more (photos 2 and 3). However, I don't think there's any risk of the two separating (photo 4).

[Junker Jörg]

That does look good!

jj:

[playmofire]

That does look good!

jj:

Thank you.   

[playmofire]

The next stage is wiring up the tender so that the rear lights can be powered from the motor and an "umbilical" connection made to the loco motor to guarantee smooth running over points, where otherwise one of the motors might "stall".

Not being a dab hand at soldering, I will use "chocblocs" and piggy back connectors with slide-on female connectors on the wiring.  Here are some photos showing what I mean.

[playmofire]

For wiring, I have the choice of LGB wire or some OO gauge wire for points, which handily come with slide-on connectors already fitted.

For the "umbilical", I've got a ready made one from an RC car supplier.

[playmofire]

The loco motor and tender motor will both have the same wiring (lights and "umbilical") although the loco may also have a flickering red LED as well, but more of that later.

When it comes to running the wiring, the easiest route seems to be run the wiring from the tender under the front edge of the tender body, either centrally or where the "doors" would be fitted on one side and then straight across to the loco.

For the loco, the easiest route seems to be to drill a small hole towards the bottom of the boiler back plate in the cab and run the wires for the "umbilical" through the cab to join up with the end from the tender.