Replace Wireless Drawbar on MTH big steam?

My plan was to get a female-to-female tether cable with the appropriate 2x3 connectors and leave the wireless drawbar in place as just a drawbar.

I did that out of necessity after I developed a break in one of the wires at the engine side connection. So I bypassed the draw bar and soldered (very badly) six wires from the tender into the engine. It works. But now I have to handle the engine and tender as a set. I'm sure there are smarter ways to bypass the draw bar but it can definitely be done. Really like the Helix!

One issue with replacing the drawbar is the stock drawbar parts probably won't work as the mounting for the wireless drawbar is different than the older ones with the tether.

Susan , when you say the wireless drawbar is not  " capable "   what happens to  make the bigboy stall ?  🤔

Dallas, pulling 22 passenger cars puts too much stress on the plug and socket at the tender and one or more of the contacts come loose.  I'm in the process of bringing both Big Boys down off the shelf to devise a solution.  I already see that MTH Parts doesn't have the regular drawbar parts available now.  One Big Boy has the wireless drawbar and the other has the tether and regular drawbar.

I bet you have to get creative and make some of this cobbled from parts. I have installed PS2 and PS3 from donor engines and have done it both ways. It's a lot of extra work.

If I remember correctly, it was more work converting to the wireless.

I thought you might try the tender frame swap but you state you got that handled.

I remember grinding away some serious metal to get the tether connector mounted on the engine side. It might be easier to have that end permanent.

I found this where one fellow put shrink tubing over the ends to make sure they stay plugged together.  He just covered the connector, not the pivot pins.

https://www.modeltrainforum.co...ther-fix-jpg.123098/

What about using a small black tie wrap kind of like what was done with the head shrink wrapped around the connector?  IMHO the wired tether is would be more conspicuous.  And the tie wrap would be a ton less work and super easy to remove.

Just a thought.

Tony

I used Bibb washers. These are available at Lowes. These are made of a very stiff elastomer. You press it down over the tender pin and snug against the connection at that end. That MIGHT solve your problem if the connector is working loose under the heavy load you are pulling.

Thanks for the thoughtful replies.  The load stress is damaging, bending the socket connection at the tender.

As a runner, that ugly tether doesn't bother me as long as there is a strong drawbar.

@Susan Deats posted:

Thanks for the thoughtful replies.  The load stress is damaging, bending the socket connection at the tender.

As a runner, that ugly tether doesn't bother me as long as there is a strong drawbar.

I've never had a problem with the PS2 cable tether. Easy to connect and disconnect, very robust, and trouble free. Given the choice between late model PS2 and PS3 I would always take the PS2 but that's just me. With the PS3 wireless drawbar you have a connector exposed to a fluctuating load. Bad. Not a fan of the Lionel optical thingy either.