Remotor of an old time 4-4-0?

[skipgear]

I have a customer with a 4-4-0 that runs like a champ except the motor is starting to give up the ghost. I don't want to send it in for repair or swap because out of 5 tries we got a good one. This loco runs perfectly true, no wobble and wiggle. All the others we tried bobbed and wobble so much they would derail on straight track when you tried to pull a load up a grade.

Has anybody played around with remotoring one of these and possibly improving pickup? I was looking at a way to put all wheel pickup on the tender and possibly putting a gear head motor and flywheel on it. I would like to slow it down and smooth it out some.

I have suggested the new Spec 4-4-0 but he want's the old time look, not the more modern look of the spectrum. We have it pulling a trio of the new excursion cars and I must say it looks perfect for the job.

Tony H

[richG]

I remoterd one using a can motor that measures 26mm x 11.88mm x 16mm, 1.5mm shaft. I bought some Mantua upgrade motors back in 1998 before Mantua sold out. Motors are available on ebay also. I have pulled some can motors out of old CD drives that measure 26.5mm x 11.72mm x 15.87mm, the shaft is 1.5mm x 9.4mm. They work fine.
I shortened the drive shaft to 24..6 mm long for slightly closer coupling. My loco is about 15 years old.
I read a review about a year ago at Peach Creek Shops that Bachmann had released an upgraded version that ran a lot better than the older ones.
I also installed a Lenz decoder for DCC.
Old time info you might be interested in.
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/1879/why/

Rich

[richG]

Here is a comparison photo of motors.
The top one is a gear motor 13mm dia x 43mm long
The next one is a CD drive motor
The third one down is a MC-94 Mantua motor
The fourth is a 7 pole 13mm X 20mm coreless motor.
The bottom item is a Mantua General tender frame I have used to replace the Bachmann frames.
I put that one in for reference. The gear motor and coreless motor come from Micro Loco Motion.
He sells direct and is also an ebay seller.

http://www.micro-loco-motion.com/canmotors.html
http://stores.ebay.com/microlocomotion

Rich

[skipgear]

Rich,
Thank you for your reply. I have dealt with Eldon from Microlocomotion on some N scale projects. I have a similar motor to the Cd drive motor you are talking about. I tried it and it was a little too fast compared to the stock motor. I have a few Faulhaber 1516's that I thought about trying but wasn't sure if they would be strong enough as I have them for N scale projects. I may just have to contact Eldon and pick up something specifically for this loco.

[richG]

I forgot to mention that the gear box on the gear motor reduces the motor speed 4 to 1. The driver gears handle the rest, 37 to 1.

Rich