Pickup for 44 Ton Non DCC

[Billm10454]

I am trying to put a dcc decoder from another 44 Ton onto  a non dcc 44 ton. There are only 4 wires on the non dcc loco. These wires go to the motors. Where are the wires for the pickup, or how does the loco pickup from the track.

[MrMoose]

Post a picture of it if you can. You should have 2 wires coming from the front truck and 2 wires coming from the rear truck and two wires for the motor.

[Billm10454]

There are 2 motors. Each set of truck has a motor. The black wires go to the motor. There are only 4 wires.

[MrMoose]

What Make is this 44 ton?

[Billm10454]

It's a Bachmann. Here is a photo of the engine http://s311.photobucket.com/user/Billm10454/media/P1010028_bak_zpsfdeqcery.jpg.html

[Billm10454]

The red circles indicate where the wires are connected to the truck and where they go to. The wires on top were soldered to a board that had led lights for the front and rear.

[richardl]

I followed a tutorial in MR magazine, Jan. 2001, page 108.
The motors are nestled in the truck frame and connect directly to the pickups on mine. Remove the motors. Mine cane with black wires.
With a small four inch sharp wire cutter. Cut the pickups shorter. Scratch the black coating off the pickups in a small area. Dab rosin flux and touch with rosin solder and fine point soldering iron.
Solder black and red #30 to each pickup. Connect to decoder, red and black input.
Solder orange and gray wires to motor brush contacts.
Wire in bulbs.
I have installed a Digitrax DZ125 decoder in a two motor 44 ton.
Solder splice wires to decoder wires and use small diameter shrink. Don't take a chance to run the loco with unused decoder wires not insulated. One touch to a rail and poof goes the decoder.
Wire the motors in parallel. That is how they were before conversion.
I wired mine in series and did not see any difference. Observe polarity or the motor will work against each other.
Piece of cake.

Rich

[richardl]

The below link is from a Google Image search. A few photos are mine from what Google found on the Internet.
You will see the single and two motor versions plus other Bachmann locos.
Yes, Google is a privacy thief.

http://tinyurl.com/o24cj2f

Rich

[richardl]

Forgot to mention, the two motors are in parallel by default. The motors connect directly to the track via the pickups.
The old DC version 70 two motor 70 tons were done the same.

Rich

[Billm10454]

Thanks Rich for the help. It is a lot clearer to me now.

[jbrock27]

I am curious about what the Athearn motor is doing there lying near the girder Bill.

[richardl]

Just in case, my two motor developed a cracked gear. I rewired the loco with all the parts I took out and sent it back with a check. I received a single motor DCC ready which I converted to sound.
Keep all the parts you remove.
I had separated the two light parts from the PC board and kept the PC board. One motor brush would hang up at times also but it still ran when I rewired it. Every so often I would have to pull the shell and tap a brush on the offending motor.
Bachmann either trashes old locos or "maybe" someone sells them on ebay. Lol.

Rich

[Billm10454]

Thanks again Rich for the great help