WILLIAMS (Samhongsa) Brass AC-12 Cab Forward - HELP NEEDED

I have one of these I super detailed and would not attempt to separate the shell. If the gear box is not making noise, I'de leave it alone,

That's not holding the frame on.  I've never seen a brass locomotive that needed you to reach inside to take it apart.

Did you take this screw out?

@gunrunnerjohn posted:

That's not holding the frame on.  I've never seen a brass locomotive that needed you to reach inside to take it apart.

Did you take this screw out?

Normally I would not have to take one completely apart. I have taken the shell off a big boy and challenger and fixed frozen wheels on both of those (same vintage - Crown Edition Williams Samhongsa Brass 1989-1990). Easy.

This Cab Forward, not so much. The Shoot owner even looked it all over and saw no way to get that off and confirmed that screw is attached to a nut on the other end which is holding the whole frame to an L shaped casting that is soldered to the cab/shell. This is definitely what is holding us up...

That said, I’m not sure anymore it will make a difference. The problem is in the gearbox which I can’t get apart, even after removing its two side screws. Problem is the drive shaft is stuck through the front slot and in order to remove it all I have to get the motor off and out, which wouldn’t be an issue if the shell wasn’t in my way. A gear in the gear box is either loose, off track, or partially gone. It’s intermittently making contact between the motor gear and the drive wheel gear.

Already hating this engine and ready to sell it as is.

What will you take for it ?          j

@DdotCdot posted:

Normally I would not have to take one completely apart. I have taken the shell off a big boy and challenger and fixed frozen wheels on both of those (same vintage - Crown Edition Williams Samhongsa Brass 1989-1990). Easy.

This Cab Forward, not so much. The Shoot owner even looked it all over and saw no way to get that off and confirmed that screw is attached to a nut on the other end which is holding the whole frame to an L shaped casting that is soldered to the cab/shell. This is definitely what is holding us up...

That said, I’m not sure anymore it will make a difference. The problem is in the gearbox which I can’t get apart, even after removing its two side screws. Problem is the drive shaft is stuck through the front slot and in order to remove it all I have to get the motor off and out, which wouldn’t be an issue if the shell wasn’t in my way. A gear in the gear box is either loose, off track, or partially gone. It’s intermittently making contact between the motor gear and the drive wheel gear.

Already hating this engine and ready to sell it as is.

If you can see the nut through the window, ....can you tape a tiny ignition wrench to a screw driver and stick it in through the window??....you can’t hold me to this, it’s been 30 years since I took apart a Samhongsa Cab Forward, .....but I want to say the cab top half is separable .....again, you can’t hold me to that,.....look for all the tell tale itty bitty screws, usually slotted in Samhongsa land,....Williams might be Phillips .....I’m with John, I’ve never seen a brass constructed the way y’all are having the fight of your lives,....has to be an alternate route, or it’s been Ruth Goldberged by somebody before y’all got it,...

Pat

...

@harmonyards posted:

If you can see the nut through the window, ....can you tape a tiny ignition wrench to a screw driver and stick it in through the window??....you can’t hold me to this, it’s been 30 years since I took apart a Samhongsa Cab Forward, .....but I want to say the cab top half is separable .....again, you can’t hold me to that,.....look for all the tell tale itty bitty screws, usually slotted in Samhongsa land,....Williams might be Phillips .....I’m with John, I’ve never seen a brass constructed the way y’all are having the fight of your lives,....has to be an alternate route, or it’s been Ruth Goldberged by somebody before y’all got it,...

Pat

...

😭😭😭 lol - I think you might be onto something there, Pat.

Never have I ever had this much trouble with a crown edition piece, and I’ve fixed more than a dozen with deep problems in no time.

If we throw the towel in tomorrow - you’ll see it online “somewhere” soon -as is for parts or display. (Email me for details.)

Thank you all!

I would say the cab has to come off somehow.  the obvious thing to me would be the screw, and presumably a second one, as marked with the red arrow. But don't rule out something coming from the top or front of the cab.  Don't feel too bad.  I am picking at a Darstaed unit that I also had to go back to 3 times before I figured out how to get the cab off.  ( turned out to be a screw hidden under a removable coal load!)  Actually, does it look like maybe the front face of the cab comes off?  I can see what appears to seam in the video and still shot above.  If the front face came off could you get to the nut?

I know I puzzle for a spell on some locomotives getting them apart.  However, for all the hundreds I've taken apart, I've never seen a key fastener be buried where there's no direct access to it.  I actually have a Williams brass cab forward that someday will get an upgrade, it's buried in my train closet right now or I'd look at it.  I'm 99% sure that there's an easier way to disassemble this than trying to reach in there and take that nut off.  How do you expect to get it back on to reassemble it?  That makes no sense to me at all, and I'm betting in the final analysis that is not the first step.

New day, fresh mind - again taking on One of the world’s most evilest brass cab forwards... 😬

Ok. Afraid to say - that nasty screw with the nut was in fact it. This engine truly was not intended to be taken apart. ...But, here we are. Apart, and I have the trick to put it back together later.

Now I can do what is needed and hopefully get the gearbox open and fixed. I’ll chime in with an update - probably sometime after🎄

Thanks to everyone who chimed in. Honestly I feel like just getting some feedback helped give me confidence to keep at it and not give up in frustration, so appreciate you all reading. Was ready to throw it off the bench last night.

Maybe this will help some other Poor Unfortunate soul who might make the unwise decision to fix one of these in the future. I was pretty convinced that this was not the way in and that there was a huge secret I was missing, but... there wasn’t.

now I can easily access and remove the motor and get into the gearbox and hopefully fix it.

Was this bought used?

It appears that there are threads in that mount on the shell. Maybe it got stripped out and someone added the nut? If the nut is brass is there any signs it was soldered on at one point?

I would change it out. Maybe re-thread that base?

"It appears that there are threads in that mount on the shell. Maybe it got stripped out and someone added the nut? If the nut is brass is there any signs it was soldered on at one point?"

Good point.

"This engine truly was not intended to be taken apart."

Anything hard to take apart was usually hard to assemble; not the way things are typically done, especially by Samhongsa. I have never found their products to be hard to access, though I have never worked on one of their Cab-Forwards. I have had one of their Challengers all over the workbench.

Glad you got it open.

There's no way that kludge is stock, I agree with Joe.  I'll say it again, I can't even imagine that it was designed that you'd have to do something that nutty to take it apart!

I'd probably consider soldering the nut on with silver solder so it goes together like it should.

Since this thread proved Daniel’s CF to be a nut job in search of a new thread, we can give thanks for his severance success. Perhaps a grand parental CF Story might serve to relax . . .

My ailing grandmother lived in Glendale, a block from SP’s LA to Portland main line, and I would walk to trackside every other Saturday while my mom serviced grandma’s house. It was WWII, and it seemed several freights passed each hour, nearly all pulled by one of these funny looking Cab-Forwards.  As a kid, they reminded me of my Pop-eyed Goldfish.

Many years ago I took my eight year old grandson to Griffith Park’s Travel Town where several retired steam locomotives are on display. The cabs are missing most of their gear, but I was still able to show him an air brake handle, a throttle, and a “Johnson Bar” (forward/reverse lever).

When he was nine, I drove him four hundred+ miles to see the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. He was able to visit the very large cab of the last remaining SP Cab Forward (4294) which looks to still have nearly all its original appliances. A museum official was also in the cab conversing with a couple other adult guests. Meanwhile, my grandson slipped into the vacant engineer’s seat and pretended to operate the controls. Then he said, “look, Poppy, I just reversed the train with the Johnson Bar.” The museum official got a funny look on his face, bid adieu to his guests, and came over. “Does that youngster really know what a Johnson Bar is and does,” he asked.

“Well, yeah,” I responded.

“I have docents on this museum staff that wouldn’t know what a Johnson Bar is,” he answered.

From the mouths of babes . . .

FWIW, my Williams CF has pulled a good many long freights for me over the years when I ran it on the San Diego 3-Railers layout. Looked great on nearly forty foot long straights.

Now that you have it open, cut some clear plastic and put some windows in the cab. I used microscale clear glue 'Micro Kristal clear' to glue plastic windows to cab.

Final update-

Gear box repaired: problems - misaligned gears, caked in grease, box had shifted slightly

Fix: High heat and lightly tapped gear box cover with hammer, cleaned out all old grease and applied new grease and oil, re-aligned gears, box cover reapplied and tighter, cranked gears slowly by hand until they were smooth and free of kinks

Numerous stripped screws replaced, including main original body mounts.

Larger shell mount screw (MTH diecast mount screw) used in place of the custom nut/screw we thought we couldn’t get off. Holds even better. Easily removable.

Everything is back together and running better than before! Here is a video from earlier today just after I completed as reinserted the gear box, but just before I noticed I had placed the tension plate on the gear box upside down after we made a new screw and washer for it (original screw threads were gone). That was corrected right after the video. And everything else has since been put back together. Really a solid runner now. Will update with a running video tomorrow.

For now - here is a look at the drive block free of the shell...and some more photos from inside.

*The absolute worst part of this, besides finally getting the shell completely off, was reattaching the front drive wheel set to the drive shaft and back onto the slider-guide spring at the same time, and getting its 4-pin connector in at the same time - as there was no play and no wiggle room. Just a nightmare.

im convinced this one was heavily worked, altered, and stripped by someone. But even still - it’s one of the worst Crown Edition designs I think I’ve seen yet.

I’ve done more than a few dozen Crown Edition engines now, Both 2 and 3 rail versions - including Big Boy, and Challenger, and none were quite like this.

After maybe 600 or more deep engine repairs since I got back into this 3+ years ago...this one is now on my top 5 worst Engines to repair list.

Needless to say - I don’t think I will touch another Williams Brass Cab Forward for quite a while, if ever again, but that does not make this a bad model to own.

When working right, it works great and looks fantastic - displayed or running. 🚂