Can corgi PCC cars be motorised using a MTH chassis and can a Corgi Birney car likewise be motorised using a Lionel tram chassis?
If not are there any cheap motorising units out there?
Many thanks James
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Originally Posted by Alibatwomble:
Can corgi PCC cars be motorised using a MTH chassis and can a Corgi Birney car likewise be motorised using a Lionel tram chassis?
If not are there any cheap motorising units out there?
Many thanks James
The Corgi PCC body is much smaller than the MTH PCC chassis.
Bill
I have a Corgi Birney that I powered with a Bowser kit and a Corgi PCC that I powered with the GHB kit.
Didn't Bowser also offer a kit for the Corgi body? I THINK I remember seeing ads for
that.....
The pictures below are the Corgi PCC converted to run. I used two WBB E-Z Street chassis - I disassembled each chassis and took the powered end of both and bolted them together into a two-axle/two-motor central portion shown in the last photo: it has a motor at each end and overall pretty good power. I used the axles from the front of each chassis as a sort of pilot at each end to give it the four axles overall it needs. It all fits into the Corgi PCC body just fine. I think i shortened the Corgi body about 1 1/4 inches: I made this one to run on Superstreets/E-Z Streets D-16 and D-21 curves and I needed a shorter body/wheelbase to get around the righter curves. Of course it will run on normal O gauge track, too.
I've converted a number of the corgi buses to streets also. This was not that much harder.
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Wow Lee that is amazing just don't think my surgery skills are up to that.
Also sound expensive using so many Bachmann chassis.
Many thanks all. James
Originally Posted by Alibatwomble:
Wow Lee that is amazing just don't think my surgery skills are up to that.
Also sound expensive using so many Bachmann chassis.
Many thanks all. James
The surgery and all is not that bad, but it helps to have bandsaw - a lot. As to the cost, one way or another it costs about the same I think, to build one. My PCC Trolley cost about $200 or a bit more in supplies: one Corgi trolley body, two WBB sedan chassis. That is not bad considering the cost of just buying a trolley from, say MTH or Atlas, etc., but I can understand it can seem a lot for a project that you have not done something like it before and consider to have a high probability you might fail and have to buy more parts (it happens, trust me
).
).I've converted a number of Corgi buses to run on 'Streets/anything O also. They were about the same overall difficulty: you have to shorten all of them to get them to run through D-16 curves: with a stock wheelbase the buses will struggle through D-21 but not D-16. The trolley was longer and would not go through either without shortening. Doing the bodywork to shorten them is not trivial but if you know how its fast. I think the PCC trolley, full length, would run on O-27 track, however. If that is your plan you can avoid all that work.
The only difference from buses is that the trolley had four, not two axles. In all the buses and the PCC, Superstreets and E-Z Streets vehicles' chassis are really good for the transplant because they are narrow and fit without a lot of hassle. I never considered anything else except a scratch-build chassis (which I have done for some of the buses). But I generally used the WBB van for buses but that is another story.
I picked the WBB Sedan over the van or the older-but-still-available K-Line and Lionel vehicles for the PCC because the wheels were more trolley like. The central powered two-motor "power platform was actualy easy to build: disassemble the two cars and chassis. Take the unpowered end for one chassis and cut the adjustable section (the back portion, with the notches) off the unpowered front section: use that cut-off portion, and its notches to bolt both rear sections together back to back - its long enough to overlap both powered ends and its notches grasp theirs to make a two-powered axle chassis. Re-wire the DC leads from the rectifier on one so its motor goes backwards. Done. The two front axles you mount in pilots you make . . .
I found the slide set I originally posted on it last March - around the 27th: sorry but I cannot find the video I refer to here of it: seem to have lost that.
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James:
Back to your first question in your initial post and supplementing my earlier post, here’s a link to a thread several months ago started by Lee with a message I had posted with photos and dimensions comparing the sizes of a Corgi and an MTH PCC. As you can see from these photos, the Corgi body would definitely not fit on the MTH chassis. You’ll have to either go with Lee’s modification or use a power kit from one of the other manufacturers that have been successfully installed in a Corgi body as reported by other posters.
Anyone have both the MTH PCC trolley and the Corgi model? | O Gauge Railroading On Line Forum
HTH,
Bill
