CONVERTING AN MTH DIESEL ENGINE TO NON-POWERED?

Just take the motor(s) out so there's no gear meshing with the wheels.  Take the rollers off if you don't want to save your lights.

I hate dummy engines.  I bought an Atlas GP9 dummy several years ago and found MTH powered trucks would fit so I converted it to DCS, then pulled all that out and converted it to BPRC.

If you do want to save some lights you can get LEDs that operate at track voltage from Evan Designs and wire them to the rollers.  Might need to do some minor modifications, but it doesn't take too much effort.

It's easy to convert them.  You just take the motors off the motor mounts and then put the motor mount back on to hold the trucks on.

As for lights, you can actually use the original lights if you just add one AC<->DC converter module from eBay.  Adjustable power modules canbe had for a few bucks, we talk about them here all the time.

if you remove the motors, but leave all the "guts" will the sound and lights still work?  or do the motors need to be plugged in to complete some circuit? I plan on doing this with a MTH SW1 one of these days when i scoop it up, so this thread is good timing.

Not really, you don't have the flywheel tach to tell the prime mover when to ramp up and down.

well now isnt that lovely, so much for that plan haha! 

Great responses, guys.  Thanks for the help!

One more thing. No dummy locomotive will roll like a boxcar. Dummy locos have axles passing through sleeve bearings in a die-cast truck block just like a powered loco, just without gears. So they're heavy and don't roll particularly well compared to other rolling stock with pointed-end axles  rotating in slippery plastic inserts or depressions molded into the backs of truck sideframes. But if your powered loco is a typical twin motored unit, chances are the drag won't be noticed as long as the rest of the train isn't heavy enough to tax the motive power (which usually doesn't happen till the train is longer than most home layouts can accommodate anyway)

---PCJ

I would think if you ran conventional you could retain all the other features in your newly minted dummy if you just replaced the motor(s) with a resistor. Something like a 4 ohm 20 watt or so. If you run command then you are out of luck.

Pete

Thanks for posting Mike.  I never thought of buying a PS1 and converting it to a dummy, but I’ll keep that in mind from now on.  I have several dummies.  Only had a problem one time with a powered A pulling two dummy Bs and a dummy A plus seven passenger cars up a 2% incline.

I did convert a PS2 (with bad boards) to a dummy.  I didn’t keep any electronics in it, but as Brad mentioned, a $2 Evan Designs regulator and a couple of 3V LEDs would do it for lights.  However, they wouldn’t be directional.

Bob,

I have a few MTH dummies that I bought new and like very much.  But they are hard to find in all the road names.  I love the idea of using Evans designs to light dummies  as I have used many of their lights over the years and they work well and I have yet to find one die out would not have thought of that without this post.    My favorite dummies are the MTH E8s because the do light and are directional -- probably my favorite diesel sets.

Mike