SP AC-4 assembly (cont)
That took a couple hours just to route 4 sets of wires from the cab to the inside of the boiler! The wires are so small that they don't bend easily so one needs to make sure there are no 'loops' when 'fishing' the wires through the holes. The marker light wires had to go through a hole on the face of the cab and then into a hole on the floor and then bypass all the detail under the cab to get to the boiler interior. Additional wires had to be added to the LED wire leads to reach the boiler. Plus, the wires tend to snag on the small access holes: drilling those small holes, I'm sure there were some burrs along the edges.
The marker lights that came with the engine are on this engine and I was able to drill them out, in place. I opted for this method as the markers are the old style and I only have brass copies of the modern style. One other AC, the original markers were kept but the Tomar markers were put on the other 2 AC's.
The headlight and cab light was much easier to install. All the small electronic components were scotch taped to the top of the boiler and all the wires were routed to about the center of the boiler as the motor is huge and takes up a lot of room.
I added some lead weight but it was minimal due to the motor, virtually, taking the entire width of the fire box area. Normally, there is a good 1/4" on both sides of the motor but not in these engines.
Along each step of connecting the wires back to the electronic components, the LED was checked to insure I didn't 'hose' the connections. On the final check, I ran a lead from the hot and ground side to the boiler frame to insure none of the LED wires were grounded out to the boiler: better to find out now rather than after final assembly!
