Hi John
The GP-9 electric motor what did you use Postwar or MPC era?
Way to go John!
nvocc5 posted:Hi John
The GP-9 electric motor what did you use Postwar or MPC era?
Looks to be an MPC model, I believe the PW didn't have the multi-colored armature windings. I just got the stripped frame with the motor and truck from Harry Henning, so I didn't actually know what era it was from. Since the mount was the same and it would be an easy transplant, that was all that I was interested in. I cleaned it up and gave it new brushes and plopped it in. 
If the EL wire does not work out for you and alternative would be Fiber Optic Solid Core Side Glow Cable. It comes in many different sizes. The only thing is it needs an Ultra Bright LED to light it. If the run is long I place one LED at each end to increase the brightness. For single strand I will drill a small hole in the end of the led for mounting the fiber and gluing in place with UV glue then cover the led in shrink wrap. Do not us snips to cut the fiber use a Razor blade or Xacto knife for a clean square cut to get the maximum brightness out of the strand.
I've considered the side glow cable, but I haven't experimented with it yet. What I saw was fairly dim, that could have been insufficient lighting, but I wasn't inspired to go further. I may have to revisit that idea.
What's UV glue?
Thank you.
Not really a glue but bonding like plastic that is UV activated.
https://www.amazon.com/Bondic-...lastic/dp/B00QU5M4MG
Once you start using this you will find many uses for it. Unlike glue this will not melt the fiber strands.
NelsonW posted:Not really a glue but bonding like plastic that is UV activated.
https://www.amazon.com/Bondic-...lastic/dp/B00QU5M4MG
Once you start using this you will find many uses for it. Unlike glue this will not melt the fiber strands.
I forgot about that stuff, I have yet to try it.
Dear John
A quick question about the additional Pullman motor. I have a donor engine which is a Lionel 230 Chesapeake & Ohio Alco Diesel From 1961. According to the Greenberg's repair and Ops Manuel it has a Pullman 2023-100 would that motor work in this application? I am still new at this this and would like to get your opinion on this before I start taking it apart and running into problems.
Dear Miggy
Membership application is in the process and being placed before the board for a vote.
Kris, I can't say for sure if it would work. I happened to have a motor with an identical mounting plate as was used in the Phantom, so I was certain it would work. I also used the whole motor and truck from the donor locomotive, so there was no issue of matching gears, etc. The Phantom side frames had the same type of mount as the donor truck, but they had screws and are not the swaged like the donor. You can see where I ground the swaged side frames off the donor being careful to preserve the square holes that mounted the Phantom side frames.
Thank you
John
A Lionel #230 from 1960 will not have a 2023 motor in it, bottom base mounts to truck quite a bit differently. The 2023 type was used in the Alco's with die cast frames and GG1's.\\
Marty
The one I "liberated" from the old frame was in a stamped frame, but I confess that I don't know all the in's and out's of the post-war stuff. I was just happy that it had the exact same style mounting as the Phantom.
John thanks for the reply. I do not want to beat this to death and this part of my honey do and not on the work bench project, yet. Currently I am building the layout once that is done and operation this is the next project. Since I do not have a donor laying around yet, I was wondering if ordered the complete front Pullman motor assembly from Lionel and installed in in the rear would that work? The cost of a working donor Pullman is about the same price that Lionel wants for new part for the Phantom. Just throwing this out there to see what your thoughts are on this issue.
I remember back when I saw this engine in a 2006 Lionel catalog and was very confused. I thought it was an actual real train, so I started searching for a real life one, it wasn't until a few years later I realized not all the trains Lionel makes HAVE to be representations of real life trains. I'm hoping to get he batman one and doing an extensive upgrade on it one day, as I'm a fan of both batman and Lionel so it'd be a great thing to have. I really like the upgrade you've done to yours, it's truly a locomotive of the future! How long will it be before you make it levitate?
Some of you may be familiar with the computer game, Siberia. It's a great game that requires alot of thinking. In the game, there is a train. The Lionel Phantom always remind me of it.
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nvocc5 posted:John thanks for the reply. I do not want to beat this to death and this part of my honey do and not on the work bench project, yet. Currently I am building the layout once that is done and operation this is the next project. Since I do not have a donor laying around yet, I was wondering if ordered the complete front Pullman motor assembly from Lionel and installed in in the rear would that work? The cost of a working donor Pullman is about the same price that Lionel wants for new part for the Phantom. Just throwing this out there to see what your thoughts are on this issue.
I don't think the complete motor assembly comes with the mounting plate as that was part of the chassis. If you can get the mounting plate, then you can cut out the chassis for the plate. The mount for the dummy truck is quite different than the power truck and requires a different hole, and it's also not recessed like the power truck. In the first post of the thread, the pictures have the mounting plate you need, and I cut out the chassis in the proper shape to accept the motor movement.
Hi John
Thanks for the reply, I do have the mounting plate in the shop. I also found a donor Postwar Pullman. Quick question do you have use a Capacitor Lionel part number 691cnp1001 on the donor motor?
How the moving coming along?
I don't know what Lionel 691cnp1001 is, and their parts site is down. You need a 1uf 50V non-polarized capacitor on each brush to frame for the motor.
If you're talking about the Phantom, it would be the AC Commander. Since they don't have anything like the Phantom sounds, you'll want to retain the chips from your existing RS 2.5 boards for use in the later RS boards.
Hello john. This was the best. I always liked the look of this engine. I just bought a phantom I complete set but have read about all the power issues. Now I have hope. Now the problem. I have to do the upgrade and I havent touched a train in a while. So my question/plea is you have a parts list and a tutorial!
My "parts list" is pretty much in this thread. The wild card is I'm not 100% sure which chassis I got the motor and mounting plate and motor from, it was from a graveyard at Henning's, just an old chassis sitting there with a motor sticking out. My expertise runs more to the modern, but it was a single Pulmore motor chassis that has the same plate as the Phantom to mount the motor.
As I noted, the motor mount was actually spot welded to the chassis, I just drilled the welds out, being careful not to take too much material. I hogged out the motor opening to the same as the front motor and just screwed it to the chassis. One thing to note, you want to be careful to line up the truck with the position of the old unpowered truck as the sideframes won't fit if that's off.
The ERR AC Commander replaced the original LCRU and gave me much better low speed performance with the dual motor setup. I also had a RS4 Phantom 3 sound board, and I just rounded up a RailSounds motherboard to hold the RS and power supply.
After getting all the running gear done, I added some custom lighting to wrap up the project.
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@gunrunnerjohn posted:My "parts list" is pretty much in this thread. The wild card is I'm not 100% sure which chassis I got the motor and mounting plate and motor from, it was from a graveyard at Henning's, just an old chassis sitting there with a motor sticking out. My expertise runs more to the modern, but it was a single Pulmore motor chassis that has the same plate as the Phantom to mount the motor.
As I noted, the motor mount was actually spot welded to the chassis, I just drilled the welds out, being careful not to take too much material. I hogged out the motor opening to the same as the front motor and just screwed it to the chassis. One thing to note, you want to be careful to line up the truck with the position of the old unpowered truck as the sideframes won't fit if that's off.
The ERR AC Commander replaced the original LCRU and gave me much better low speed performance with the dual motor setup. I also had a RS4 Phantom 3 sound board, and I just rounded up a RailSounds motherboard to hold the RS and power supply.
After getting all the running gear done, I added some custom lighting to wrap up the project.
Thank you john. I am saving this all in as many places as possible. I would love to see yours in real life. Thanks again stay tuned.
@ROB O GAUGE KID posted:Thank you john. I am saving this all in as many places as possible. I would love to see yours in real life. Thanks again stay tuned.
Well, if it makes you feel any better, after being away from model trains since my late teens, my wife bought the PRR Flyer set for around the tree about 20 years ago... The rest, as they say, is history! 
I dabbled in postwar for a few years, then I discovered command control and away I went, never to return!
You would probably have to be somewhere in the NE to have a shot at seeing my stuff, I'm in SE-PA. If you come to York, I'm usually around the Henning's Trains table if I'm not out foolishly spending money.
@gunrunnerjohn posted:Well, if it makes you feel any better, after being away from model trains since my late teens, my wife bought the PRR Flyer set for around the tree about 20 years ago... The rest, as they say, is history!
You would probably have to be somewhere in the NE to have a shot at seeing my stuff, I'm in SE-PA. If you come to York, I'm usually around the Henning's Trains table if I'm not out foolishly spending money.
We will see what October brings. Fingers crossed
We can only hope.
Evening john. I found on ebay is this something that would work . See attached
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It doesn't have the proper mounting plates. That's a diecast chassis. The chassis I hacked had this plate riveted to the frame, it's the same style as the Phantom motor mount. You need to find a chassis with this mounting plate (or make one).
You're looking for mid to late 90's stuff like the Virginian Rectifier with the stamped metal chassis. They have the mounting plate for the motor that matches what you need for the Phantom. I'm sure you could adapt other stuff, but this was the path of least resistance and since the plate provided the mount and proper height, it made the job easy.
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Thank you sir. I am looking for that path. I was just hoping a frame with 2 motors would work under phantom shell with jst replacing side of trucks. I now have 6 engines, platform built 2/3 of it covered in green paper. Replaced 22 switches. Got hold of tinman for non derail & bob nelson controllers. I m working on it a little at the time
The Phantom chassis is an odd shape to match the shell, probably why they went with the sheet metal chassis. While I suppose anything's possible, I think mechanically getting everything to line up on a different chassis will be a lot more difficult than just transplanting the motor. I guess it was serendipitous that the exact right chassis was available when I was doing the upgrade.
With everything so much up in the air not being able to go to shows and talk with other tinkerers, and not having looked at teains in 30 yrs, I m doing some guessing. I pulled up the sante fe f3 from lionel web site. I am keeping in mind until I get phantom apart and visually see what is what, I am casting in the dark a bit,m so if you'll bear with me .... attached is photo from lionel. I was thinking, i know thats dangerous, i can get motors, plates, trucks at least (2, 50, 1) looking at frame will have to figure out if Nortth lima may have some thing. Then i lk have more question. Thanks John for putting up with all the questions.
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Truthfully, I'd be shopping around for an old chassis with the single motor, it'll make the process go MUCH quicker and cheaper. I'm pretty sure that adapting the Phantom shell to that chassis will be a much bigger deal. If you're buying this stuff from retail, you're going to spend a ton of money to add a motor to the locomotive!
I suspect if you post in the WTB forum here with a picture of the mounting plate and ask if someone has an old chassis with the power truck you might get lucky.
The good thing is, it's almost impossible to kill the old Pulmore motors, so when I got the dusty chassis with the power truck, I just did the basic cleaning, replace the brushes, and lube on the motor and truck, it ran like a top after that. You shouldn't have to pay more than $50 or so to do the motor upgrade, you're looking at a lot more the way you're going, not to mention all the work to retrofit it!
Hello John,
Thanks again, agreed. I have looked on emay for the gp 9 chassis with motor and truck found a few but being I dont have Dremel, yet, and I m worried about drilling and cutting holes in a chassis without a few machine shop tools. I have filled condo up with platform and trains. Lol! I have contacted North Lima see if they have any advice and I will keep looking. I Will be sending you more pics and more questions. Thanks again
On a more sour note TCA had to cancel jacksonville,fl show for june. Brooksville, fl show still on for this weekend as far as I know at the moment.
Interesting thread. I have the original Phantom, that I waited 2 years receive after Lionel first announced it. To this day my friends still laugh and say "I can't believe you actually bought that!". I think it is cool, though.
That being said, I frequently run it on my Subway line, one of the few places in Warrenville where it will not hit scenery. The engine pulls the 4 cars with no problem, O42 curves.
Thanks lionski. I always thought it was cool, the engine at least. Bought full set NIB ON EBAY, I have thrown all this together in 2 months: 6 engines (3 full sets) 2 transformers and 22 switches. I am running O27 track due to space but may need to get the 54 curve to run the o gauge engines. I ll see as we move along. Have a great day.
Has anybody replaced the bulbs in these cars with LED's? My only complaint with this set is how dim the lighting is in the cars.
Does anyone sell "plug-in" LED replacement bulbs for this application?
I have "improved" the engine with all LED lighting, including some cool effects in the turbine inlet. On my to-do list, I am going to do LED lighting in the cars and add some special effects. I did add an LED to the observation car taillight to make it stand out.
It runs OK on magnetic track with one motor, but when I was running it on Atlas track, it couldn't get out of it's own way. The two motors cured all of that and more.
