K-Line tanks engine PS2 upgrade

Thanks.  What motor did you swap in?  The K-Line motors I have seen seemed to have an open type worm gear.  G

I used an MTH motor and was able to swap the worm gears.

Ralph

Nice upgrade; good work!
Did the K-Line motor not have a flywheel?

 

Rod

What sound set are you planning to put in there?

 

-Roger

How did you get the worm gear off?  It's usually a real struggle to get those things off!

 

Some K-Line Cruise engines have thinly tapered flywheels, because the sensor reads a ring under the flywheel.  I imagine it would have been a PITA to get the tach tape to stick.  G

Yes I get that George.

But most non-cruise K-Line have a nice meaty cylindrical flywheel which I have found quite easy to affix a tach strip to.

So I guess it just depends how the tank engine was originally equipped.

 

Rod

 

 

George is right. It did have cruise and the flywheel was really thin. Plus there a plastic ring under it that has gaps and the board that has the sensor on it is really stuck onto the motor. If I would have tried to get it off I would have wrecked it. I thought it was better to just save it.

 

John, I got lucky with the worm gears. I found a decent puller from great plains hobbies that was pretty stout. But in the end I got lucky that they came off easy. I will eventually have a better puller made. I know there was a thread about them.

 

Roger,  It's been a while since I did this engine. I thnik I used a Jersey central camelback as the tank engine is a Jersey central. Which got me really close to the correct speed for the engine.

 

It got really tight in theree. I'll have to post some more pics of upgrades i've done that I probably went further than I needed to. Sometimes I just can't let it go till I feel it's right.

 

Ralph

Great work Ralph.  As we know, some upgrades will beat you up and make you wish you said NO.  Great pictures.

Sorry George. It was a while ago I did this and now that you mention it is remember doing that. I think I have pics of it.

Ralph

Just teasing Ralph.  It is an interesting little engine.  That rear coupler is interesting, even the Lionel one requires a lot of disassembly to get it on and off.  How did you find speed control with the sound file you used?  How close to SMPH?  G

Yeah it was a pretty interesting upgrade. I'm pretty sure I used a premier jersey central camelback soundfile. Being able to use the original K-line worm gear helped me get close.

To get it even closer I used the tach strips that Dave Heikel posted. I Went to staples and got the shipping label paper, because of the sticky back it makes it easy to mount right on the fly wheel and sticks really well.

Hope this helps. If I think of something else I'll post it.

Ralph

Ralph, did your K-Line smoke unit had puffing smoke via diodes?  This one has a diode in the smoke fan supply line and the smoke fan return to ground is via a diode and the chuff switch which is also generating chuff on RS 4.0.  So seems a simple diode can protect the Lionel RS 4.0 boards from damage when fan is grounded.

Hey George. Sorry for the delay. I don't remember if it did. I had the parts here but couldn't find them. I just know I gutted everything and started from scratch.

But the ground thing could explain why I had to cut the smoke unit board at each screw.

Ralph

Thanks,  Seems this tank engine is unique in the K-Line Cruise area.  Lionel and K-line do ground one end of the heating element to Chassis ground.  You definitely need to isolate the ground end for an MTH install.  G