Lionel Chessie T-1 6-18011 Mods

No video here with Win7 or Win10.  However, I can open it and view it if I download the video and open it with VLC Media Player, don't know why Windows Media Player chokes on the video.

For videos, I upload them to YouTube and then link to them, that seems to work much better in forums.

BTW, pretty good smoke for a puffer, nice job.

Thanks John, Post updated.

If you need to find more information on the Lionel T-1 look up the Lionel number 18006 as the Chessie engine is an exact copy of the Reading Lines T-1, just has a different Lionel part number and paint job to the best of my knowledge. In real life the Chessie System either bought or rented the Reading Lines T-1 2101 and re-painted it for the Chessie System and gave it a tune-up or minor overhaul as well.

Lee Fritz

Speaking of the 18006, I have one of those that I upgraded with all my stuff, ERR Cruise and sound, Super-Chuffer, Chuff-Generator, etc.   I used an MTH fan driven smoke unit, smoke like it's on fire.   For a couple of meets, it was my Super-Chuffer demo locomotive at York.

Pretty good job J!

I've always had a soft spot for the early 90's Lionel LTI steam. Definitely an improvement over the standard units that did a rather flimsy job.

phillyreading posted:

If you need to find more information on the Lionel T-1 look up the Lionel number 18006 as the Chessie engine is an exact copy of the Reading Lines T-1, just has a different Lionel part number and paint job to the best of my knowledge. In real life the Chessie System either bought or rented the Reading Lines T-1 2101 and re-painted it for the Chessie System and gave it a tune-up or minor overhaul as well.

Lee Fritz

Any chance of getting a link for the 18006? The paperwork I have doesn't have any of the wiring with it?

Thanks in advance.

Chris

Nice work!  That is much better than original.  You've done what I have been trying to find time to do.

The link for the 18006 is :

18006 T-1 engine

Hope this helps.

John

Lionel Parts posted:

The link for the 18006 is :

18006 T-1 engine

Hope this helps.

John

 

Thanks for the help John. I got these from Lionel. I was hoping for the wiring diagrams, but apparently these must not be available.

I did find the Electric Railroad website. It's not too bad to upgrade the engine and tender with the AC Commander and Railsounds equipment. What I found expensive is the controls needed to operate the setup after modification.

Well, you can pick up an old CAB1/BASE1 setup for less than $100 typically, that's all you need over your basic transformer for operating TMCC locomotives.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Well, you can pick up an old CAB1/BASE1 setup for less than $100 typically, that's all you need over your basic transformer for operating TMCC locomotives.

I saw a few of those on eBay, but they're new and people still want a premium $ for them. So I'll continue to look......

But thanks for the info John.

Chris

Keep an eye out in the For-Sale forum here, they come by pretty regularly.

Chris,

Email Sean Marchev at Seanchev @aol.com as he had a TMCC set at the Greenberg show for a reasonable price. Can't recall how much but it was not more than $125.

Ted

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Speaking of the 18006, I have one of those that I upgraded with all my stuff, ERR Cruise and sound, Super-Chuffer, Chuff-Generator, etc.   I used an MTH fan driven smoke unit, smoke like it's on fire.   For a couple of meets, it was my Super-Chuffer demo locomotive at York.

JOhn, I have the Reading and Chessie T-1 but with the AC motors. Want to update mine for me with TMCC/Railsounds, smoke unit and chuffer? :-)

Mine was a royal PITA, the tether was the sticking point.  They don't have any place to feed the tether out logically, so I decided to put it on the apron below the cab floor.  That spot is about 1" of SOLID DIECAST!  I must have worked on that at least an hour with a Dremel and a carbide bit to hog out a big enough hole to put my 10-pin tether connector, I'm not doing another one of those any time soon!

Ok, I guess I will bring mine to hennings :-)

Nice try!

ZWPOWER13 posted:

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Speaking of the 18006, I have one of those that I upgraded with all my stuff, ERR Cruise and sound, Super-Chuffer, Chuff-Generator, etc.   I used an MTH fan driven smoke unit, smoke like it's on fire.   For a couple of meets, it was my Super-Chuffer demo locomotive at York.

JOhn, I have the Reading and Chessie T-1 but with the AC motors. Want to update mine for me with TMCC/Railsounds, smoke unit and chuffer? :-)

If, I go down that road, I'm theoretically thinking that the AC Commander will fit in the engine and the RailSounds in the tender. The fan driven smoke unit would be later. But then again, I typically a gluten for punishment, so I may stuff everything in the tender and "hog out" a hole for the connector. If I do, I'll post up how I do it. I also noticed that the  NYC 4-8-2 Mohawk 6-18064 has a IR link on the draw bars. If we put a set of the Mohawk tender trucks on the Chessie tender, power would be from the track and not the engine.

John, You have a source and part number for that 10 pin connector?

I've attached the 2 drawings for the Mohawk.

Chris

I use MTH tether parts for many upgrades.  I also buy the matching Hi-Rose DF3 and/or DF11 connectors from Mouser if one of these doesn't do it.  For steamers, the engine connector on a small PCB is an MTH AG-0000039.

Thanks for the info John. I did a cost comparison with purchasing what I would need from the Mohawk and what Elec RR costs. It's about half. So I need to bridge the gap between the tender and engine. Its too bad that the existing harness on the engine has too fine of wires to supply the smoke unit. Does anyone know the manufacture of the tether connectors on the engine?

You'd be surprised how small the smoke unit wires can be.  MTH uses a pretty small wire, either #26 or #28 in the harness to drive their smoke with PS/2.  The only #22 wires in the tether are power, ground, and two for the motors.  The other six are all small wires.

Thanks for the info John. I ordered the universal 90 degree tether and 10 pin plug.

V/r

Chris

I was able to pick up a Lionel Cab 1 TMCC Remote & Base for $75 plus shipping. Now I just need to get the internals for the engine and tender.

Chris

So I decided to pull the trigger and go all in with TMCC on this 4-8-4...As I stated  above I was able to get a Cab-1 system. It was sold as is and all I know for now is I need an antenna for the remote, should be fairly easy.

I had a Lionel fan smoke unit I bought to modify my Berkshire Jr Polar Express, but this mod would be sooo much easier. I did change out the smoke element to an 18 ohm for the PE, but since I want to add the Super-Chuffer I'm going to go with a 20 ohm as per GRJ. It was hard to strip the chassis down for the first time, but I saw how easily it was assembled, so I felt a little more at ease. I took some careful measurements prior to removing the OE smoke unit so I would be able to put the fan driven one in it's place. I still need to remove the smoke lever from the chassis but that'll be super easy. I had to file down the area directly below the fan motor for clearance. I also plan on adding a switch to shut off the smoke unit fan and element when I so desire or...  when I'm told to do so by the Boss.

Part of the modification to the smoke unit besides the element, is that I cut the trace on the PCB separating the fan circuit from the element circuit. Part of the order I placed for the fan unit was extra connectors. So I added one strictly for the element. You can see the cut trace in the bottom right hand corner. I will also be enlarging the air hole to 3/16" when I change out the element. Just so you know...The stack is a sand blasting nozzle I had laying around. It fit in the smoke hole, so with some drilling out the nozzle hole and grinding the outside, I got it to fit up inside the boiler smoke stack. Since the boiler smoke stack is painted gray, I painted the smoke unit stack gray to match, inside and out.

The smoke unit bracket is from an old grill I once had. This is a piece of stainless I was able to cut and use. I had to file down the LTI, Inc. on the front of the steam chest to get the bracket to slide between the mount for the OE smoke unit and the steam chest. One screw and nut holds the bracket in place. Sorry don't have a better picture.

This is with the boiler on the chassis. The smoke unit stack plugs in nicely to the boiler stack and the paint matches. Its the perfect height too.

Next up will be the tether and plug for mating the tender and engine together. That should be arriving any day.

Looks good, it's coming right along.

Thanks John!

When I put the post up, I was thinking, "why did I have that extra plug on the smoke unit?"  There's no reason I couldn't add the third wire to the smoke unit plug and get rid of that unsightly monstrosity on the top. I have the wire so, why not?

Yep, they already provided the traces to the connector.   I normally route the motor directly to the Super-Chuffer through a 2-pin connector.  Then I use the smoke unit connector for the heater.  This allows you to unplug the smoke unit and take it out for maintenance, you know that will be required at some point.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Yep, they already provided the traces to the connector.   I normally route the motor directly to the Super-Chuffer through a 2-pin connector.  Then I use the smoke unit connector for the heater.  This allows you to unplug the smoke unit and take it out for maintenance, you know that will be required at some point.

John, From what I'm reading, You bypass the circuitry for the fan motor and go directly to the S-C?

Yes, the Super-Chuffer provides control and power for the fan.  Notice the fan is connected only to the Super-Chuffer here.

Got it, Just wanted to make sure. Thanks 

Spent the best part of the day re-designing the smoke unit to make it more clean looking. I removed the diode, Cap., and transistor which all were part of the 5v regulator for the fan motor. I received my 20 ohm resistors today, and bought a SPDT switch so I could isolate the smoke unit if the Boss gets agitated. Because of the way the headlight bulb is mounted on the boiler front I had to cut off over half of the switch handle. I also enlarged to air hole to 3/16". The smoke unit is ready to go. Now I need to get the rest of the electronics.

John,

Have a Super Chuffer question...The AC Commander doesn't have a chuff input. Would I connect the chuff output of the super-chuffer to where the reed switch would connect on the RailSounds board?

Thanks

No problem.  For reasons only known to ERR, the AC Commander got a duplicate antenna connection instead of the chuff switch input.  However, the chuff input to the R2LC is on pin-17 of the socket.  Instead of the chuff input, just tap into it there, it is the same as the other ERR products chuff input.  Wire it just like my diagram of the Cruise Commander with the exception of this one change.

Jayhawks, great work on your mod. John can correct me on this if I'm wrong but thinking you have AC motor on this loco; believe the chuuf generator is designed for D.C. Motor with a flywheel for the LED reader; I had to use a reed switch magnet assy from. ERR to generate a chuff for my 18006 and 18009; mounted the assy on a tender truck; ERR manuals show to mount a reed switch.  Some folks have swapped to a D.C. Motor mod; did that also but I found the gear box is geared for an AC motor; did not work well for me; bottom line check with GRJ; he is a wizard on these upgrades. Falcon70

gunrunnerjohn posted:

No problem.  For reasons only known to ERR, the AC Commander got a duplicate antenna connection instead of the chuff switch input.  However, the chuff input to the R2LC is on pin-17 of the socket.  Instead of the chuff input, just tap into it there, it is the same as the other ERR products chuff input.  Wire it just like my diagram of the Cruise Commander with the exception of this one change.

Falcon70 posted:

Jayhawks, great work on your mod. John can correct me on this if I'm wrong but thinking you have AC motor on this loco; believe the chuuf generator is designed for D.C. Motor with a flywheel for the LED reader; I had to use a reed switch magnet assy from. ERR to generate a chuff for my 18006 and 18009; mounted the assy on a tender truck; ERR manuals show to mount a reed switch.  Some folks have swapped to a D.C. Motor mod; did that also but I found the gear box is geared for an AC motor; did not work well for me; bottom line check with GRJ; he is a wizard on these upgrades. Falcon70

Thanks for the info John. We'll make 'er happen.

Falcon70, I still have the a.c. motor. As per John (I've picked his brain a lot already) in another thread, The chuff generator won't work with the a.c. motor. No fly wheel.

I'll be doing everything by ERR instructions.

John,

Got another question...With the Chuff (reed) switch connected to pin 5 and ground of the super-chuffer and the Chuff input from HDR 2 going to pin 17 of the AC commander (as indicated above) , What gets connected to the Railsounds board trigger connection wires?

Nothing connects to those in this scenario.  The chuffs go to the Railsounds via the serial data.

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Nothing connects to those in this scenario.  The chuffs go to the Railsounds via the serial data.

Awesome. That's what I was hoping for. Thanks again John.