Gap between Lionchief steamer and tender too big

It'll be a bit trickier since they have an oddball connector that resembles a phone jack.  It obviously could be done, but the ROI may not be worth the effort.

I’ve shortened drawbars on a few engines. The early 0-8-0’s had a huge gap. I would just cut a piece out of the drawbar where it’s pretty straight. Pickup a piece of 1/2 wide brass strip. Drill holes to accept a 2mm threaded screw and drill corresponding holes in the brass strip. The brass needs to be tapped and basically would act as a nut. You could probably just hold it together with JB Weld. I just wouldn’t trust a butt joint.

I recently changed out a trailing truck for a different style. Should have been a direct swap. I had planned to shorten the drawbar anyways. For some reason I had to add a spacer to get more of an offset for the IR tether to line up. The picture below at least gives the idea of how to do it. Without seeing what your working on. It’s hard to give advice. If your handy you could always design a shorter one and have it 3D printed.

I have no Lionchief but looking at a few drawbars it appears it can be done similar to the way Dave has done it. I just use a Dremel with a wire brush to remove the blueing, cut and overlap the desired distance and solder to two pieces together. Done this on both TMCC and Legacy engines.

Pete

Thanks Dave and Pete. That sounds simple. I'll try it with an older Lionchief Polar Express engine. That gap is a mile wide.

Guys, the Lionchief has wires through the drawbar, it's not that simple.  The connector is also the actual attachment point.

John, its just a matter or removing the heat shrink, disconnecting the harness at the motherboard and removing it from the drawbar. Same thing required for Legacy and TMCC LEDs. Not a big deal at all.

Pete

I guess I'm thinking of the LC+ drawbar, it's all plastic and one piece.  I don't have the locomotive anymore, but it didn't look like there was any easy way to shorten that one.