can motor for post war lionel...726/736 Pullmor replacement

Sorry...that heading should be "Can motor swap for Lionel Post War...meaning, like, the 726/736, or 671/681/2020 Pullmor...

Check with Timko.

I have several of those engines and have wondered about that -after working on some AF engines with the same arrangement.  My 671 is the first model and would like to keep it original.

Frank Timko does a great job on installing a can motor in your postwar/Modern era classics. Smooth runners. Plus, with the can motor, if you want to upgrade to ERR cruise, you can.  

One thing to note.  Some locomotives don't translate well to the can motor, the gearing is too tall to get decent low speed running.  I had direct experience with the Lionel 726 Berkshire with a Timko DC motor upgrade.  Timko does fine work, but he has to work with what you have, and if the gear ratio isn't optimum, not much he can do about it with a simple motor swap.

 

I bought one from Frank Timko when I upgraded my 1950 #736 to PS2.  He may need the housing from your existing motor shaft.  I tend to agree with GRJ.  The flywheel does protrude to the back of the cab.  The problem is that Lionel used lousy gearing, and your stuck with it unless you can get a single thread worm and spur; I don't have any idea where you'd get these..

I think those days the speeds for model trains were stopped & FAST!

 

I have one with the smaller motor installed.  Briefly put, the motor runs nicely without any cars but heats up pretty quick.  Even though this motor is shorter, the flywheel is in the cab and pretty ugly.  

And like Gunrunner said, the gearing is a bit tall.  It has ERR and takes off pretty good and runs okay for a couple minutes.  

My 726 is the Anniversary model that came with TMCC.  

If you want more, contact me off the forum.

 

hello guys and gals.........

 

What's wrong with the Williams 726, it already has the can motor/flywheel in it ?

 

the woman who loves the S.F.5011,2678,2003,200

Tiffany

Here are some facts:

-The Lionel Berks (except the 1946 model) are geared about 8:1 with 1.25" drivers

-The Williams is geared about 13:1 with ~1.25" drivers

-RailKing and Lionchief locos are geared a little better, anywhere from 14:1 to 18:1 depending on vintage, model, and driving wheel size.  (The Lionchief Mikado might be better--numerically higher, that is--because it's a slightly newer design.)

 

-From my direct observation, the ubiquitous Mabuchi RS-385 can motor can achieve 8000 rpm in an O-gauge locomotive application.

 

I submit that for the average home-sized layout with sharp curves, a 50 mph top speed is plenty.  If you'll accept this premise, then the "right" gear ratio for a steam loco with 1.25" drivers is about 30:1.  So they're all geared too fast!!

 

Interestingly the K-Line K-3000 Pacific which was developed from the Marx molds back in 1991 was geared at 26:1 with small 1-1/8" drivers.  However it lacked a flywheel, which made it less than ideal in a lot of operating scenarios.  Unfortunately there's no easy way to add a flywheel to this loco.

 

Someone mentioned the American Flyer upgrades/can motor retrofits.  At least one of them features a single-start worm which yielded a gear ratio of (surprise!) 30:1!

 

I for one would love to see a retrofit option for postwar Lionel steam locos, that would confer to them realistic switching performance.  But more than 20 years after the "scale revolution" I'm still waiting.  

 

If Chunky's the soup that eats like a meal, why can't we have a toy that runs like it's scale?

Great, all thanks. Guess thank won't work either...l looking for the same thing...smooth slow speed from vintage stuff...guess if I ever win a mega lottery will start business to re"engineer" the stuff...thanks again!

 

The way to solve this issue is a DC motor with a small gearbox to increase the gear ratio to a reasonable level.  That would be a slick product if it could be in the form factor of the plain DC motor.  I wonder if Timko has ever looked into this kind of idea?  The gearing would allow you to use a smaller motor as the torque required from the motor wouldn't be the same as with the tall gearing.

Has anybody bothered to contact Timko and ask about his can motor conversion? Maybe he addresses the gear ratio issue.

He has been around for quite a while, if his conversions weren't any good, I'd think he'd be long gone.

A planetary gear set would take up only a little extra room.

I've seen a number of Timko conversions, including the aforementioned 726, and I've never seen one with gearing.  I don't know that he doesn't have such a product, but I have seen no evidence of one in the marketplace.

 

GRJ, I don't comprehend you.  The Timko motor has a worm gear on the end of the shaft, which meshes with the existing spur gear on the axle shaft.  Thus, the worm is double-threaded.  There is nothing wrong with Frank Timko's conversions and conversion motors; he is just working within the existing Lionel design. 

 

If someone were to produce a single-threaded worm and matching spur, it is not rocket science (just a pain) to replace the spur on the axle.  But someone would have to spend the money to produce the tooling to cut the revised worm, of find an existing one that would fit the Lionel shaft.

 

The 1946 726 is a special case, with a straight cut gear, turning a separate shaft with 2 worm gears.

I obviously know that the worm gear on the motor meshes with the existing axle gear!

 

What we're discussing is that even with that being said the gearing in some models is too tall.  A case in point is the Reading T1 4-8-4, we had similar issues with the Timko motor in that one as in the 726.

 

Of course you'd have to spend money to do a lower gear ratio, I think that's what's being discussed.  I'm pretty sure everyone in the discussion knows that the current products work within the existing Lionel design, the contention is that the gearing is not optimal with either the AC or DC motors in the Lionel design.

 

Timco does excellent work but be prepared to wait for it if he does the work.  My standard gauge engine I had converted to a can was a 9 month wait!

GRJ, I read you as saying you'd never seen a Timco motor with any gearing.

 

I agree with you that Lionel gearing is too tall. 

 

I haven't studied how Frank mounts worm gears to his motors, to analyze whether a different worm could be used.  Or if a mounting bracket could be devised to, say, mount a MTH steamer motor and gear to an old Lionel frame.  

The only "gear" on the Timko motor is the same as on the Pulmore motor that's being replaced.

 

My idea of "gearing" would be a small gearbox in front of the motor to increase the gear ratio for smoother low speed running.  I'd love to see such a product, but I'm not holding my breath.  Probably the best way to accomplish this would be to come up with a motor package that included the gearing and was just used in place of the existing motors.  For a large steamer with the big Pittman motor, it should be pretty easy to use a smaller motor and gearing to the output shaft to accomplish the goal.  This would be a drop-in replacement for the motor, very slick.  For the smaller motors, maybe a little more complicated, though I've seen some pretty small gear motors.

 

Since I'm not a mechanical engineer, and I don't have the equipment or talent to create such a product, I have to wait for it to come from someone that is able to produce it.

As I'm sure you know, GRJ, but some other readers might not, the Pulmor that was in the 736 had no shaft bearing at the commutator end.  It was supported by 2 enclosed ball bearings in a long housing (appears to be a casting) between the armature and the worm gear. Frank Timko mounts his can motors on the same housing.  I haven't taken it apart so I don't know what he has inside.

 

Now, ruminating, a can motor has a bearing at each end, so it doesn't need the long housing to support the armature.  Could an MTH steamer motor fit closer to the axle-mounted gear so the worm could engage it?????? I haven't opened any of my R-K steamers lately (trouble can find me easily enough--I don't have to go looking for it), so I can't answer this off the top of my head.  It it could fit, I suspect someone good at aluminum bending could make a bracket to hold it in place and the existing axle-mounted gear could be replaced with a gear that would match the worm.

 

I'm not sure that one of the Mabuchi motors MTH uses in its diesels could take the load of a 736.

I have looked at,my early 671, the  681 and the 726RR and wondered if it would work but I want to keep my PW Lionel original as much as possible.

Well, keeping them original kinda' goes against the grain of installing a DC motor to do full command with cruise capability.

 

Pete, I have only a passing experience with the Timko upgrades, having worked on a few.  I've never actually commissioned one myself.  That being said, I have the Reading T1 4-8-4 here with the Timko upgraded motor.  I checked, and it has a 16:1 gear ratio from the motor to the drivers, so it's not as bad as some.  It does indeed use the Mabuchi RS-385 can motor.  I have yet to install the electronics, so I don't know how well it'll do for low speed performance, though that gear ratio does give me hope.

 

GRJ, what was the original power in the Reading?

During the early days of electric power in model airplanes, DC can motors with planetary gearboxes were fairly common. The gearboxes are essentially the same diameter as the motor. I might even have an old one in a box somewhere.

 

Minimum gearing on these is about a 3:1 reduction, which would put the final ratio up near that ideal 30:1 ratio discussed earlier.

 

I don't know if any are still in production, as ungeared "outrunner" brushless motors have completely taken over the hobby.

It was an AC motor.  I bought these with the Timko conversion installed from 3rdrailmike when he was selling out.

GRJ< I'm wondering if initially as issued by Lionel, it had a better gear ratio that the 1950 736. 

Well, I'm assuming that since the motor just connects to the driveshaft and no gearing was changed, that it was geared 16:1 from the factory.

To my way of thinking, the preferred solution would be a whole new chassis with the motor and gearing already installed.

 

The original poster asked about the 736.  But there are probably ten times as many 4- and 6-wheel spur-gear-driven steam locos out there.

 

Think about the MTH / Lionel Corporation Tinplate 263E, especially the "contemporary" version.  From the outside it looks just like the original.  But on the inside, there is a can motor mounted at the top of the chassis, with a reversible worm gear driving the rest of the original gear train.  Probably the best of both worlds.

 

In a sense, Lionel "converted" their 4-wheel steam chassis to a can motor in 1982, but it was a real low-cost hack job.  For classics like the 2036, 2046, 2034, etc., there's still plenty of opportunity to do it right.  How about a Kickstarter project?  With the large potential sales base, I guarantee there would be enough demand to break even on tooling costs.

 

Or to reduce the initial outlay, the developer could offer CNC machine code as a download for $1, or as part of a kit with gears, ball bearings, and other small parts.  Buy the code and have the new motor plates / chassis made from raw material stock at your local machine shop.  The resulting project would be something like an O-gauge "Bild-A-Loco" motor.  How's that for a postwar celebration?!

 

Who knows? With the economy on the rebound and new concepts like Kickstarter and 3-D printing, maybe someone will finally make what I want!

Ted, I'd prefer to have an unlimited train budget too, but that ain't happening either.

 

I eagerly await your Kickstarter project to solve this problem.

 

Apparently, the MTH solution isn't perfect.

 

 

Here are pics of my can motored 726 and 736 Berks.

  

 

 

 

I guess you can choose between remotoring the originals or repainting the repros. These, of course are the latter.

 

Pete

Exactly!  Why chop up a perfectly good loco to retrofit a motor that will give you less than optimum performance?  Run the post war loco the way it was meant to be run.

Wild Mary, notwithstanding what may be implied from the above, the old Lionels run better with can motors, even with the same gearing, than they did with the 3-pole Pulmor motors.  I have 2, a 1950 736 and a 1954 624, in both of which I have replaced the Pulmors with cans.  I made the conversion so I  ould run them in command mode, and not have to ride the throttle on grades.

 

 

Let's see, with can motors you can get smoother speed transitions and less cogging at lower speeds, a much, much, much longer brushlife compared to postwar open frame motors, quiet running... sounds like optimum performance to me.

RJR I stand corrected.

Just agreeing with what gunrunnerjohn said "One thing to note.  Some locomotives don't translate well to the can motor, the gearing is too tall to get decent low speed running.  I had direct experience with the Lionel 726 Berkshire with a Timko DC motor upgrade.  Timko does fine work, but he has to work with what you have, and if the gear ratio isn't optimum, not much he can do about it with a simple motor swap."

Thinking about what GA said about planetary gears...if I had the money would definitely do that...can see it...might actually investigate the cost...that being said what size motor would fit the envelope with a 1/4 to 3/8 inch thick planetary set hanging off the drive end of it...away from the toys so just speculating. ..

Meant GJ...gunrunnnerjohn...