With the help of forum member and great friend Bruk Banister I did a legacy conversion on a Lionel SD40T-2. For those of you who think Bruk is just doing simple work think again. Like him, I had to make a custom harness from scratch. Crimping each wire is a task and a big one at that. That was just the beginning. I had to swap out trucks, pickups, motors, smoke unit resistors, etc. Pretty much the only original things on this locomotive are the shell, frame, side frames, speaker, rear motor, and marker lights. Everything else is brand new.
I used products from ngineering for the lighting. The N1021C 2x3 chip LED's for the number boards and cab lights soldered to the N8106 soldering pads. The headlights and backup lights were the N1061 3mm LED diodes. The Markers were the same ones that came factory in this conventional locomotive. I unsoldered them from the original Lionel lighting PCB and connected them to wires running to the RCMC.
The RCMC was from a newer legacy SD40 and sounds from a newer one as well. Horn is almost like a fire truck. The switches for the locomotive were originally underneath the locomotive, but to make it more like a legacy locomotive I moved them underneath the back removable vent. The sounds used the original mini fat boy speaker and there was no need for a baffle. It is loud and has enough bass with just the fuel tank and shell. The front motor was also from a newer diesel and has the encoder on it with the correct flywheel.
Here are some clips and videos of the project. Hope you enjoy.
