It’s no secret Lionel had to go to a different motor vendor sometime around the introduction of Legacy. I can’t blame Lionel for this problem, as Ametek, the now overly proud owners of Pittman motors priced themselves right out of our hobby. Lionel was not the only mfr. to drop Pittman from its vendor line. MTH had to do some shopping around as well, .....enter the Cannon motor for Lionel. I had no intention of changing out the Cannon from my ESE, until it decided it was time to go. So I had to do something since the locomotive demanded repairs on it’s terms, not mine. ........my ESE developed a loud ( actually horrible sounding ) clicking noise from the motor,.....it stumbled, coughed, and farted, so I hit the panic button, and began investigating......turning the flywheel by hand as best I could, I could here the noise coming from the motor. So, it’s off to the landfill for our friend the Cannon,.....there’s not a lot to report for this swap. Fairly straight forward, a couple minor mods to do, and it’s a bolt in swap. First thing to do is harvest out the dying Cannon. The Cannon and the Pittman share the same bolt pattern, HOWEVER, the mounting holes on the mount & spacer, are just a wee bit too tiny for a 6-32 machine screw to pass through. Easy peasy, the next size up drill bit from the existing holes remedies this quickly. The only specialty tool required that I’d think is necessary is a 1/4” countersinking bit, and I’ll explain why. The encoder bolt holes are designed for the smaller Cannon’s metric screws, so just dusting them off with the countersinking bit allows the 6-32 flat heads to sit flush on the encoder. Take care as this is a PCB with some surface mount goodies. When I say they just need a dusting, that’s about all they need........different models might have different space requirements, however I found with the ESE a Pittman 9433 was the right size to fit in place of the Cannon, .....I’m using model # 9433F686 on this swap, which is an oilite bronze cintered bushing motor....but it is a copper graphite rare earth magnet motor. Plenty of power for the ESE. The flywheel is pretty much a direct swap.I just had to police up the bore where the set screws poked through to get a nice slip fit,.... Then, I just had to be sure to get the basket lined up in the sensor, and spinning freely with no rubbing.....after that, it’s just reverse order of removal, and police up Lionel’s wiring. Not a huge undertaking.....the whole job takes about 1 hour depending on skill level, and it’s back on the road making smiles for miles,....also note I had a blown up switch in all that mess too, .....that’s typical of that particular brand of switch, another quick swap out....
Pat
