HOW TO'S

Idea for mounting a coupler to replace the cast-in dummy type on many steam locomotives. The concept is to grind-off the dummy coupled. attach a piece of channel stock to the pilot beam with two small screws (not shown) and mount an MTH or Lionel short shank coupler with a simple pin.

For your dining cars, put food on the table.

Concept for an El station using a Lionel station platform.

Imagine this sticking out of the fascia on your layout at a city.

The idea is to place one or more PVC plastic pipes of a diameter large enough to hold 10 inches of sectional track so you can statically display a subway car, or perhaps an observation car heading for Grand Central Terminal, or a trolley car running under the city.

Have the PVC tubing protrude an inch or two from the fascia. Paint the inside of the pipe grimy gray, and put two strips of 3mm LEDs along the pipe. Power the track so the car lights work.

For the really industrious, have the pipes protrude at an angle.

Yo Bobby,

Thanks for all the good ideas.

On the smoke unit repair: for which manufacturer is that for?

Sam

Sam,

It is typical of an MTH smoke unit.

Great post Bobby.  Very well done.

  Bobby Ogauge..you need your own book like Barrys book only Bobbys Book...i'd buy it

I get so much good from this forum that I view my contributions as payback. And many of the ideas are not mine, but depict some of what I learned here. Also, I enjoy illustrating ideas. It's engineer in me!

Great stuff Bobby.  Thanks for sharing.

The post about couplers was very timely.

Helpful to those of us that have "coupler performance anxiety"!

Samparffit and Bobby Ogauge, 

These are great ideas!  I could have hit Like on all of them, but didn't want to inundate your in box.  Thank you very much for the tips.  I will have to save this topic!

Popi,

Great idea!  

POST 13:

Cutting track.

A band saw makes quick work on cutting track. I use a regular wood blade and the table saw is a non-metal cutting band saw but this works for thin metal cutting, also good for aluminum and brass cutting.  The metal is harder on the teeth but, with 105" blade, it takes awhile to wear it down.

The blade doesn't snag the track as when I use a hacksaw.    A piece of two by four with 3 grooves cut in it with a table saw will also work to hold the track in place if using a hacksaw.

A dremel cut off disk also works but, usually, the disk leaves an angled cut other that 90 degrees.

Good Stuff!

Dave G.

I kinda like the idea of a repair Forum too.

     Hoppy

Thanks, guys.

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Post 14:

I find a nice soft artist paint brush work great to getting rid of all that dust that collects in hard to read places without damaging those hard to reach places!

Another good brush for cleaning 'general' dust:

POST 15:

OPERATING TMCC ENGINES VIA MTH DCS REMOTE.

(Note: I don't claim to be an expert on this subject so please feel free to add corrections and/or other resolutions).

One can operate both TMCC and DCS using their respective remotes but I decided to have everything under the DCS remote.  I don't know about the new legacy TMCC but I've got the very first TMCC cab 1 and I find the controls on the DCS are more intuitive to use than the controls on the TMCC (your comfort maybe the opposite).

A nice option I like on the DCS remote is being able to startup and shutdown an engine on the track.  For some reason it bothers me having the circuit board 'on' when the engine is not in use for long periods of time. With the DCS remote this is easy to do.  Unless, I'm missing something, with TMCC, I have to key in TR 1 and rotate the throttle down to turn off all engines....and then start up again to get another engine started after just running a different engine.

My new DCS system just came in today.  The very old one's circuit board fried (no fuses on the original).  It was so old that it had a VCR tape for instructions!

I've got three engines that are TMCC and set them all up under TMCC using the last two digits of the engine number (required before setting up under DCS).

I've got 4 track loops (trk 1,2,3,4).

TIU

Input side:

Var in 2:

has a ZW-C with a brick.

Fixed in 1 and 2:

The MTH Z-4000 two outputs connect to these.

Var in 1:

a 180W brick.

Note: For power input, 4 bricks could be used instead of a ZW-C/L or z-4000. Best not to use old transformers as the circuit breakers are slow: not good unless you want to fry $200 engine boards!  At the slightest wheel off and short, the circuit breakers trip on my bricks: a hassle to go back to reset them BUT cheaper than new boards!  Best to keep the bricks within easy reach on a layout.

Output side:

Var out 1:

nothing connected

Fixed out 1:

Trk 1 & 3

Fixed out 2:

Trk 2

Var out 2:

trk 4.

NOTE: updated.

When running the 14 car passenger train, the passenger lights would oscillating dim and get bright and after awhile, the Z-4000 red light came on.

I'm guessing that due to the large number of passenger cars on all the tracks (32 cars), they were over drawing amps on the Z-4000 and causing the short (red) light to come on. 

Initially, I was not using var 1 output so I connected trk 1 to var 1 output to get more power (as Tim would say!).  Since Var 1 output is, like variable, I first have to select TR button and sel Var 1 and throttle up the volts to 18 (only gave it 18 versus the max of 22).  I also connected the TMCC base wire to all output grounds.  This seems to be working much better.

Output side now looks like:

Var out 1:

Trk 1

Fixed out 1:

Trk 3

Fixed out 2:

Trk 2

Var out 2:

trk 4.

Trk 1: runs TMCC engines (4)

Trk 2: runs just the SF PA set

Trk 3: runs MTH engines (5)

Trk 4: runs an old proto GN F-3 set (var 2 selection)

 Messy so see MTH's pictoral:

ps: the flat face V transformer runs a 5th track which is conventional.

MTH DCS: hookup.

The pictorial (much neater!)

Need 50-1032 TIU/TMCC connector cable (each end is labeled)

Note: TMCC command base connected to output ground side.

TMCC/DCS (cont)

Uploading TMCC engines into DCS remote.

Once all the wires are connected and all TMCC engines have been loaded in the TMCC remote, then (using the DCS remote) :

After pushing on menu button:

Select system:

(using throttle roller)

select engine setup:

Select add engine:

select add tmcc engine:

spell out name of your engine (throttle roller and press for each character)

ps: there is a blank for a space bar.

pps: when done, select D for done.

scroll to your engines assigned number that was done in TMCC.

my case, last two digits of engine:

It'll now ask if you want to add another engine.

if no, press the ENG button.

A summary screen comes out here but it goes to the main menu before I have time to take a picture of it.

scroll down to get inactive engines and press throttle roller to move new engine to active.

can now select the TMCC engine and use the DCS remote on the TMCC engines just like the MTH engines:

Page 57-59 explains all this.

page 100 has TIU/TMCC interfaces.

Note:

This morning, I noticed power must be brought up with the TMCC command first (usual before ZW power) but also before DCS power is turned on.

POST 15 (update)

NOTE: updated (also entered in original post).

When running the 14 passenger car train, the passenger lights would oscillating dim and get bright and after awhile, the Z-4000 red light came on.

I'm guessing that due to the large number of passenger cars on all the tracks (32 cars), they were over drawing amps on the Z-4000 and causing the short (red) light to come on. 

Initially, I was not using var 1 output so I connected trk 1 to var 1 output to get more power (as Tim would say!).  Since Var 1 output is, like variable, I first have to select TR button and sel Var 1 and throttle up the volts to 18 (only gave it 18 versus the max of 22).  I also connected the TMCC base wire to all output grounds.  This seems to be working much better.

Output side now looks like:

Var out 1:

Trk 1

Fixed out 1:

Trk 3

Fixed out 2:

Trk 2

Var out 2:

trk 4.

POST 16:

Replacing the smoke assembly in an MTH GN z-6 4-6-6-4.

Two screws under the cab and two through the center steam cylinders allowed the running assembly to be removed from the boiler shell. 

Unusual build as a lot of the large steam pipes are part of the drive assemblies instead of the boiler.

In the center is a plate on the boiler and an L shaped stud on the drive engines that rides on this plate.  The L shaped hooks into the hole of the plate so the front engine has to be moved back a bit to release the L stud from the boiler plate.

The smoke assembly can now be easily accessed.

Two screws held it in place.

I ordered a new one (about $50) awhile ago.  The easiest test was just to connect up the new one with the two jacks (one for heating element and one for motor) and it worked.  The old one's motor is bad.

During reassembly, I made sure the smoke assembly aligned with the smoke stack hole.

Figured, I might as well grease the axles while she was on her back and oiled the other moving surfaces.

Yep, I think it's fixed

OOP's: another tire off, back to the bench to fix that :[]

POST 17:

Tire  replacement (MTH E-8's)

In POST 1,  a K-line diesel tire replacement was easy (easily removed side frames).

These E-8's had to have:

4 screws to remove diesel shell.

motor removed (screw at bottom of frame)

2 screws to remove the front pilot

2 screws to remove ladders.

4 screws to remove both side frames.

This set is pretty old (proto 2) early era.

Hopefully, the newer diesels are more PM friendly.

Greased, oiled her while on her back.

Terrific thread requiring considerable time and organization.  Thanks for sharing.

thanks, Carl.

Hey, us old people don't have much to do!

What a great bunch of good ideas and answers already on here.

Thanks everybody for contributing.

As shown by Member samparfitt, in his photo, this is why I like MTH / DCS over the Lionel Cab #1 

     MTH, will run Lionel Engines, (TMCC) Lionel is not engineered to run MTH equipment, YES, there are some minor limitations, but all is well on my layout.

      Would not recommend this process for Lionel Legacy.

See his photo below.....     Click his photo to enlarge.

This is one of the best threads I have ever seen.

I'm glad you like it, Roy.

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POST 18:

Light replacement in a railking engine.

I can't say all rail king engines are like this but this N&W J removal of the running gear from the boiler shell is a whole lot easier than my previous dis-assembly of a scale articulated.  Only 4 screws (2 in front and 2 in back) and you're done.

Nice touch by MTH: they lined the inside of the boiler shell with a clear plastic to make sure no electrical parts touch it and toast the circuit boards.

Light (as well as smoke unit) is easily accessed.

While working on her, she got greased and oiled, and new traction tire added.

POST 19:

Broken truck on railking N&W J.

Two metal tabs that are cast in with the side trucks frames broke off on the tender.

A few years ago, I noticed some of the white powdery material showing up on the coal pile that 'broke through' the paint.   I'm not a metallurgist but I think that white powder comes from contaminated cast metal.  I sprayed some wd-40 on it and that seemed to stop it as the white power never returned.  It was so small of an area that the paint was not marred (maybe not noticeable due to the rough coal look).

Anyway, this contamination may have been in the side truck frames since one was broke (or I could have been rough on it also, pretty old engine).  The other truck seems OK. 

Not willing to order a new part and wait, I used some quik JB weld to repair the damaged tabs.   Figuring, I wouldn't get the tabs exactly correct, I JB welded the side truck straight to the tabs as well as to the center steel truck frame, with the wheels in place. 

After fixing one side, the other side tabs came loose so, now, both sides are now JB welded. 

Some new side truck frames would be ideal but this 'fix' seems to be holding up well, so far.