3RS+ Lionel Legacy E7 AA Raising the trucks

thanks for the tutorial!

Now for the pilot, couplers and ladders..

Side ladders were the last thing I did.   After the trucks were narrowed I removed the metal ladders from the side frames and replaced them with plastic body mount ladders from P&D Hobby.

The pilot:    Lionel put and EMD EA or E6 pilot on the E7.   It didn't fit anymore and I did like the looks of it.

Studying the B&O E-Unit Diesel Passenger Locomotives book decided to go with the E8 style which looked more like an F unit.    There seemed to be a few variations in pilots among the B&O E units.  Backside of a plastic pilot from P&D on the left.   On the right is what I cut off to use.  In the center is a resin casting of it.The front viewThe final resin cast pilot that I used.  Only pic I could find of it.Pic of the resin pilot mounted with the short Kadee coupler.  

Never finished the pilot with brake hose or couple rods as I was thinking this would be temporary until I found or made a better one.   The bumper above the coupler is resin copy of of the master I carved out of plastic.  Lionel's was wrong.     After just looking at pics of real ones the siver silver part of the pilot needs to be wider.  

Rear coupler mounting spacer.   Again when I needed more than one part would usually make a master mold it and cast in resin. 

JoeW

Can you post some full body shots of the completed locomotives?  This post is exactly what Ive been waiting for!

My brand new E7 standing along side the 3RSed Lionel F3..  This is when i decided to fix it or sell it.

3Rsed dummy on right and the powered E7A left.   Forgot to mention the pilot is still usable. It screws right back on.  What I thought about doing was to scratch a cover for the big hole and leave the coupler off.   On the pulling end i would just get a coupler.  Never see the big hole hooked up the a heavy weight.   But,,, It's still the wrong angle.   It should be the same angle as the slope of the nose.    EA's were sloped back matching the pilot. 

Top pic is the un powered A unit with the extra wipers removed.   Bottom pic is the powered unit just before wiper ectomy.   Now they are 3RS in these pics.    You can see the ladder still attached to the frame.   Don't think it looks too bad.   Probably as far as most people would or should go.   But that pilot still bugs me.  I should fix it.

Now for the 3RS+.   Most of my engines are now 3RS.   The GGD passenger train and the coal drag is 3RS.  The K-Line passenger train, 3 engines and a couple dozen cars are scale O gauge still.   The rest of my rolling stock has been converted to 2 rail or bought new as 2 rail.   4 Atlas GP9's and the E7 AA's have scale wheels.  I can run it all on the same tracks.

Above are the wheels I bought for the E7.  I tried looking for them but P&D doesn't have the selection they use to.  Wheel tread diameter is about .824".   Tread with is about .130" .  Center hole diameter is about .120" so they have to be driller out to press fit on the E7 axle splines.   I believe the E7's had 36" wheels and these figure out to be near 40".  Check my math!   But they fit perfectly and look right.  And I bought allot of them.

Then I needed wheel pullers.  At the time the only one I could find is the NWSL puller.   Well that started bending and nothing was moving.   Should be made out of steel I guess.   Making my own was plan B.   The center silver clamp was for getting into tight spaces between frame and wheel.   Others had their applications too.  Screw ends were drilled out for drill rod to push out flat end axles or pin removed for needle axles. 

This machine vice is what I used mostly for pressing the wheels back on the axles.  Would use washers on both side get get past the end of the axle.  Made a gauge the right width so the wheel spacing or gauge on each axle would be the same.

Start by removing the non drive gear side.   Then pulled the axles out.  Then used another puller to remover the wheels without touching the gears.   Put those wheels back on first snug to the gear.  Your going to need spacers on the non gear side to limit the lateral movement of axle to keep gear coming off the drive gear.   The non drive lead axle that steers a little like pilot wheels I let float frame to frame.   I think that helped go though Atlas turn outs.

I think these engine were designed for 054.  Never thought to try it.  With the 2 close coupled with Kadees might be a problem.

Learning from putting scale wheels on my Atlas powered GP9's I cut grooves on 4 wheels on my lathe.

One GP9 wouldn't pull much but the 2 together did pull allot.  With only one powered unit traction was the way to go.   I think I trimmed the tires off the old wheels to fit cause they look worn already.   It pulls my long GGD train plus head end cars with no problem.

To finish I cut down the mounting tabs on the side frames and re drilled the holes.  This Narrowed the trucks so they tucked under the body.   Did have to use machinable epoxy to fill in the counter sink hole where I shortened the tabs.  To make it pretty and be able to counter sink the new hole.

THE END