I finally actually finished an American OO (that’s 1/76 scale, 3/4”/19mm gauge) Hallmark Lionel 2333 F3 conversion. This engine is 2 rail, DC drive and lighting. Unlike the Lionel 2333, the pilot is non-pivoting since I used the drive chassis from a Walther’s mainline GP9M - like 65 bucks from Amazon. Runs ultra smooth, can easily handle the 300+ gram weight of the hallmark shell, unlike the tenshodo drive units I’ve tried before.
Very easy to regauge the wheelsets and adjust pickup springs. This donor drive is Highly Recommended. Grinding the inner face of the pop off sideframes and spacing them out a bit was necessary to clear the wheels.
I went with old school incandescent lighting with grain of wheat. Headlight, cab light and first porthole are 12v white, rear porthole is an 18v red bulb so that it becomes brighter at a higher voltage threshold. Sorta like an analog diesel glow effect.
Couplers replaced with kadee whiskers, height set front and rear to match pre-war American OO.
With my homebrew DC controllers I’m crawling at or below 1 (scale) mph. It works so well I’m really hesitant to move this to DCC. Maybe I should just build another.
It’s so nice to finish something! Onto a 3 railer!
