A tale of two Williams diesels… can I fix them?

Are they can motors?

Alan

@Alan Mancus posted:

Are they can motors?

All the Williams diesels have can motors.

The Train Master has the bigger motors without flywheels, and the U33C has the smaller ones with flywheels.

Jon I've made other posts that sometimes a radical motor-ectomy is required to achieve the smoothest operation.  The notable exceptions are Lionels with back-drivable gears, where the motors can actually help each other.

My experience with Williams diesels is that they are powerful pullers.  As long as the @#$%^& rubber tires are present and in good shape, either of those locos should pull a respectable train with just one functioning motor.  If you're determined to restore them to dual-motor operation, wiring the motors in series instead of parallel will get you better slow-speed control and a wider usable throttle range, at the expense of top speed.

To the best of my knowledge, both of these units use the same truck block. You should be able to swap them between each unit with out any issues. It is the #322 truck. I am fairly certain Williams/Bachmann only used three different truck casting for all of their locos. That makes it easier to find parts and repair them.

The trucks, reverse boards and motors are available on the Bachmann web-site. Note that the truck is listed at $43 under the Universal and Trainmaster categories for the one with the coupler and $33 for the one without the coupler. They only list the one without the coupler for the U33 in the U33 category. You will have to look under the Universal or Trainmaster listings if you want one with the coupler, which I recommend since you get a complete coupler assy for only $10 more as opposed to $15 for the coupler by itself.

The older, non-flywheel motors are not as efficient as the newer flywheel equipped motors and will draw more current. If you replace one of them with a newer flywheel equipped motor you should replace both.

Fixing the scratches on the Train Master roof…

Well that went a little sideways… my black paint wasn’t playing nice so I went for silver… I don’t hate it, and the scratches are gone! Still might end up stripping it and doing a full repaint at some point but this will work for now…

Having just experienced lumpy performance with a dual motored rdc, the problem turned out to be a bad gear.  That brass gear eventually split and seized the motor.  My solution was to swap out a truck from a dummy unit and run it with a single motor.  I just recently replaced the bad power truck with a replacement from williams. 

I definitely appreciate the replies. Thank you all!

I think the Train Master will probably stay single motored for a while, maybe indefinitely. I am going to try throwing some transistors in the e-unit so that it has reverse, and I will at some point try to find a set of hand rails for it. Quick question, are these close enough to the Lionel TMs that their handrails will fit? That would broaden my search if they’d fit…

As for the U boat… it’s quite a bit heavier than the TM, and it will make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside if it had both motors working, especially since they’re the smaller motors… so I’m going to get a new truck for it…

Some of the early Trainmasters came with dual Pittman motors. Those will definitely work fine with a single motor.

Pete

@Steaming Jon posted:

Quick question, are these close enough to the Lionel TMs that their handrails will fit?

The Williams TM is supposed to be a reproduction of the Lionel TM, so I would venture to say the railings are the same on both.

Jon I have a dual motored early Williams FM cassis.  If you're interested my email is in my profile.   Lenny

Update: I messed around with the “bad” motor from the Train Master and confirmed that it’s bad. It’s lumpy (hits a slow spot once every revolution) by itself/no load running on an MRC dc transformer. I think it has a shorted winding. The commutator is clean and there’s no carbon in the gaps…

I went down to the electronics store (yes there’s actually an old school electronics store still open!!) and picked up $10 worth of transistors and after some very careful and tedious soldering I have a working e-unit!

I should be able to order the truck for the U boat on Friday…

I’m thinking I might at some point get a can of blue paint and some can opener decals for the U boat… but I think I will try to keep focused and fix the mechanical issue first…

@Steaming Jon posted:

I’m thinking I might at some point get a can of blue paint and some can opener decals for the U boat… but I think I will try to keep focused and fix the mechanical issue first…

If the motor is shot you could harvest the worm and put it on a replacement motor?

Pete

So I might have made this confusing by talking about 2 different engines in the same thread… (they were bought as a pair, I wanted the U boat and the seller threw in the Train Master for free).

The U boat has a stripped main drive gear on the front truck. Otherwise it’s fine. I’m going to replace the truck and then probably repaint it to Conrail…

The Train Master has a bad motor and had a bad e-unit (fixed the e-unit). I’m not as excited about this engine, so I’ll probably just run it as a single motor unit for the foreseeable future…

The new truck for the U boat has been ordered!

U boat frame is painted! Conrail decals are in the mail…

And the paint is drying on the body!

Sneak peek…

Put all the guts back in the chassis, and just set the body on temporarily… wowza!

The new truck and the decals are in the mail… can’t wait till they get here…

Update:

What kind of paint did you use for the Conrail blue Jon?….tell us more about your prep work & application!…..she’s looking good!…

Pat

Here you go:

This is what I used for paint.

Since the frame is metal I used some gel-type paint stripper, sandpaper and elbow grease to remove the paint. I then used a bunch of light coats of the blue, added the white handrails with some testors paint and a small brush, and sealed it with the satin clear.

As for the shell, I took a gamble and just wet-sanded the lettering and numbers off and sprayed the blue right over the factory finish. I figured worst-case if it reacted I would just strip it all off. It turned out perfect.

The decals were straight forward. Dip in water, slide into place, let dry, add setting solution…

I ran into some trouble with the clear. I probably should have left that step for when I was a little less tired… I think I put it on just a little too heavy and it wrinkled in a few spots. It’s not horrible, and you don’t even notice it when it’s in motion… I do have enough decals and paint to do it over, but I might decide that it’s good enough and just leave it as-is… pretty frustrating to get that far with no issues and see it wrinkle after the last step…

So I’m calling the U Boat done! I ran it at the club Friday night, and Saturday afternoon at the open house for several hours with no issues. I am pretty well convinced that I can live with the slight defects in the clear coat, I don’t really notice them when the engine is running around the layout…

I guess that means I have to give the Train Master some attention. I’ve got the shell soaking in isopropyl alcohol to strip the paint. I’m not a fan of the Southern Pacific (except, of course, the daylight scheme, which is one of the most beautiful paint schemes in all of railroading) so it’s gotta change its clothes if it’s going to stick around…

I think I’m going to try to make my own handrails because I think I would enjoy the process, and I might look into a pair of new motors eventually.

I’m open to suggestions on the paint scheme with the following thoughts: must be “different” (not Lackawanna or Virginian), must be simple (I don’t want to mess with complicated masking and paint bleed issues), does not have to be prototypically accurate but should be at least relatively plausible, readily available decals would be nice… I have a few ideas but I’d like to see what others come up with, might be something cool out there that I haven’t thought of…

Thanks again to everyone that has contributed to this thread/project!!!

Pennsy DGLE would be the easiest and it would be prototypical.

Since your U-boat is Conrail, why not paint the TrainMaster for the Reading?  Dark green similar to Pennsy's, and gold lettering.  Lionel decorated one this way in the late '80s or early '90s, if you need a visual.  The best part, they were used in passenger or freight.  Great effort on your part, thanks for sharing!