This one was free and it came from my late father and probably one of the last great TV repairmen. May he rest in peace.

Oldie but goodie. Probably from the 60's and goes all the way up to 850 degrees.

Thanks for you confidence. I now have at least a dozen which I have converted to DCC including 3 HO rdcs and 4 n-scale rdcs. Each one gets a little easier and my soldering skills with those tiny wires have gotten much better.

Actually I did figure out to take the 2 screws out of the fuel tank but the motor didn't come out that easy the first time and I know how easy it is to break some of the plastic parts. Sometimes there are also plastic clips in there and if you don't release them properly they just snap off. It was much easier once I figured out I wasn't going to break anything but thanks for the help anyways. I do have an engineering degree but like I said I've broken pieces before. Decoder installs really aren't that difficult. Although I must say it was quite an experience installing decoders in my N-scale RDCs. Being almost 65 my eyes aren't quite as sharp as they used to be. Now I wear reading glasses and I still need a lighted magnifying glass just to be able to see those 30 gauge wires once I strip off the insulation. I was a bit puzzled though when my headlight only came on in reverse but then I remembered having this problem once before and finding the CV 33,34 fix for this online.

So after resoldering and wiring I get to the train club and I hear this grinding sound. After close inspection I find the end of one of the driveshafts is split where it connects to the worm gear but the decoder install is fine.

From a pure electrical point of view I don't understand why they clip the chassis wiper but I am going to remove the motor and trucks and check this out. I did notice they remove the wire from the chassis. I will have to make some modifications to my wiring just to be safe.

I can see the two wires from one side of the trucks but the other side is grounded to the chassis.

Why can't I post a picture that's only 103kb?

I tried but it tells me the file is too big and it's only 103kb

Yes I did but it looked like the motor was isolated. However, I am concerned about cooking my decoder that is why I am asking this question. I assume there is a way to test this with a multimeter without disassembling the loco.

I recently purchased a hawthorne village marines locomotive and have install a digitrax dcc decoder with sound. My question is: Do I have to isolate the motor or is it already isolated the way it is? If it is not isolated how do I remove the motor to isolate it from the frame?