Williams 4-8-84 Cruise commander installation

Tried to contact you off the forum but alas, no email in your profile!

Just wanting to comment on the nice MGA there - back in college days 1962' - '69 a friend and I had several of them. What great cars they were. SO much fun and a far different world from the usual Chevy or Ford..

I've done a number of brass locomotives, including quite a few of the Williams models.  There is nothing special about installing the ERR stuff in those.  However, when you talk about fan driven chuffing smoke, there are some additional things you'll have to add.

I do a lot of upgrades and add the fan driven smoke to most of the brass upgrades.  I use the MTH steam smoke units in my upgrades as long as they'll fit.   In order to get chuffing, you'll need a chuff switch.

Obviously, I use my Chuff-Generator to create the chuff, this gives me a programmable chuff rate. This is a small board that is fastened to the motor and reads a tach tape on the flywheel to generate the chuff.  It can be calibrated for any chuff rate.

For the fan control, as well as adding some lighting features, I use my Super-Chuffer II.

Here's a typical diagram for how all of this is wired.

I suspect you'll have more questions, don't be afraid to ask.

I strip out ALL the existing boards and most wiring in a Williams locomotive before starting the upgrade.  I end up with a chassis with a motor.  Obviously, I plan on replacing the Seuthe smoke units with something a little more impressive.   Sometimes I reuse the class and marker lights, but they will need to be rewired a bit.  I use the MTH 10-pin tethers parts for the tether between the locomotive and tender.  The Cruise Commander and RS Commander are in the tender, the rest of the stuff is in the locomotive.

Do NOT take the wheels off!  There are three screws to take about 90+ percent of brass locomotives apart, two near the rear tether connector and one directly under the stack in front.

The Chuff-Generator & Super-Chuffer II combo will give you fully synchronized smoke and sound chuffing.  It's very unlikely that the Williams has an LED headlight or tender backup light, they're normally incandescent.  The markers/class lights can be either LED or incandescent, depends on the specific model.  I just figure out what I have and deal with them.

The motor brushes are totally isolated from the frame, you'll have no issue with powering the motor from the Cruise Commander.

I use the MTH AA-0000070 steam smoke unit in these.  I also use the AA-0000102 brass cup to solder any required brass tubing for the stack, the length depends on what you have.  For things like the Big Boy with multiple stacks, you can either see if you can find a dual-stack funnel or what I do is make one from brass sheet.  I JB-Weld a spring directly under the stack opening on the bottom, this allows me to simply stuff the smoke unit in and it's held in place with the spring.

Thanks John, that info helps me immensely! If you would, please send me a price sheet for the chuff generator and Super Cuffer II to my email. I feel much better about tackling this conversion myself now. I’ll probably just change all the bulbs to led so I have all electrical components new. One other question, the tender has one of the steps in the front that was mangled by the PO. and detached from the tender. I have the step/ladder but doubt straightening is an option. Probably need to have a new one fabricated and reattached.  Do you do this kind of work or do you know of a person that does brass repair/fabricating on trains? 

Thanks

I sent you an email.  I'm probably not the best person to do the repair, I suspect you'll have to possibly do some painting as well.  If I were to do something like this, I'd see if I could either straighten it and attach it with something like JB-Weld.  If you do any soldering, you're very likely to have to do some painting, that will get complicated.

I presume you're talking about this step?

Hay Norm, 

 I can tell you first hand that I did a Williams BB and what a PROJECT it turned into. I don't want to be a dream stealer, but if your skills are great with electric, cutting brass out of the the body and most of all, hours of fitting & re-fitting of a Lionel smoke unit (my smoke set up was different than Gunrunners I made a manifold out of brass with a 90 degree pneumatic brass elbow soldered into the manifold with 1/4 inch vinyl tubing running from smoke unit to the manifold, his way sounds easier to do, but I have no regrets ) ,wire management, placement of CG, SC, led's for headlight, & classification lights, covering some of the boards with clear plastic to prevent a short to ground or whatever else it can short out to. Next will be the tender, CCM board, sound board placement, drilling holes for the sound to escape out of the bottom of the tender, wire management, placement of both of the latter mentioned boards, putting an led into the tender headlight for reverse movement. Hope I'm not scaring you! This is a job that's not for the faint of heart in tackling this project. If you can get through some of the headwinds that I just put out there, then GO FOR IT! Don't know if you've ever opened up the BB engine, but if you do, you will find a large hunk of lead to give the BB some weight. I would be happy to talk to you, so my e-mail is in my profile. Would rather talk to you in person by phone, typing with 2 fingers takes me too long!!! Best to you!

     Steam Forever

           John

John, if it takes me much more than an hour to fit the smoke unit, I'm slacking off.  For the BB I'd just make a small manifold, I do a square one for simplicity and round the top to the shape of the boiler.  I use some foam adhesive to make a gasket to seal it to the to of the shell.  I solder the brass cup to the bottom of my funnel, taking care to insure the threads are tight when it's correctly aligned.  The spring on the bottom of the smoke unit keeps the manifold securely against the top of the shell.  One primary consideration is making it possible to take the smoke unit out for maintenance, since that is bound to happen for any locomotive that you actually run with smoke for any length of time.

I'm curious why you had to go with the tubing, etc. that makes it a lot harder to get fluid into the smoke unit.  I try to avoid any long path to the smoke unit, not only do you lose velocity and volume, but it really complicates adding fluid.

Regarding the brass weight, that's the first thing I take out until I'm mostly done with the work on the boiler, makes it a lot easier to handle.  A couple of screws to remove it.

For the Super-Chuffer II, I include a piece of heatshrink to cover it, you can slip it on when it's done and tested and shrink it.  Then I just stick it to the top of the boiler shell with Velcro.

The tender usually has speaker provisions, but if it doesn't, it isn't a big deal.  There's plenty of room in there for all the stuff.  Truthfully, the part that many find tricky is insulating the tender shell for the TMCC antenna.  That's where Kapton tape comes in handy, it's strong but very thin.  I've seen a lot of people use black electrical tape, much too thick and turns to goo way too soon, UGH!

Hay John,

 I just got me some edumacation! TY, never to old to learn from "an old dog." Arr Arr

   Steam Forever

          John

Hay John,

If you have any pics, could you share them?

     Steam Forever

           John

I was looking for a smoke unit picture, and I can't seem to find the one with the brass smoke unit installation.  I'll try to remember to take a couple, I have a couple of them sitting here waiting on a full install of DCS, and of course, the MTH smoke unit.