Disgusting Dual-Pancake Locomotive from eBay - Will it Run?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 ธ.ค. 2023
- I was browsing eBay and I found an old project locomotive someone had clearly put some effort into. It didn't appear to be in great shape so not many people showed up to the auction and I was able to get the loco for under $10.
After unboxing it, it was clear just how many changes had been made to the loco. It seems like someone combine two mid 80s pancake drives to up the pulling capacity. The wiring was a mess and one of the motors wasn't able to get power anymore.
This is far from the most tricky repair I've done but it did need some TLC to get it running again. - บันเทิง
You could probably send Harrison a destroyed loco, with only a speck of it remaining, and he’d manage to repair it. Amazing work as usual.
One second it's parts next second it's running
He literally took the lemons of some ( IIRC) Tyco E7s that were smashed to bits in the post and Frankensteined into an absurdly long but functional locomotive.
Thanks. I have been defeated by a few but I try my best.
@@SMTMainlineIs the PO Box you provided in a video a few years back still the right one? I’d like to donate a bunch of model train stuff I have.
They were F7s though@@garysprandel1817
It even has realistic smoke effects! Truly one of the most high quality locomotives ever featured on this channel. :P
The patina on that locomotive would make a great diorama of an old siding with overgrown foliage.
Man right out of the box the locomotive looked pretty cool , the rusty weathered appearance makes it look like it would be a great industrial yard loco such as a steel mill unit or it could even sit idle on a siding with a bunch of scrap and a run down structure , the possibilities are absolutely endless for that beauty.
Mad Max hits the rails!
For a moment there I was afraid one of the motors had the same problem as one of my old Bachmann pancake motors! It ignited itself and burned out in the most literal sense.
I thought that might have happened for a moment as well. In retrospect, I think one of the pickup wires was shorted badly while it was drifting and started to burn up under 4 amps of power.
Those motors sure do look like the motors found on Bachmann’s train set locomotives. I had a Bachmann F40 and 3 passenger cars painted for Amtrak and the locomotive had one motor that looked exactly like the motors on the FA. The F40 only had the front truck powered. The rear truck was for electrical pickup only. Whoever worked on the FA before must have had a spare locomotive and used another motored truck for the rear. I don’t know if Bachmann still offers these kinds of engines? I know they had higher quality engines with a central motor and all wheel drive but these cost more. Now they have engines with good detail and can motors and even sound.
The odd ball locomotives always seem to be the most interesting and fun. The dual motors is really interesting/odd. Nice work.
They are one of a kind. I like how there is only one of each and you never know what you might get.
@@SMTMainline wat is that redes thing that u use on ur metal wheels
This creature deserves the name Guy Fawkes!
When you pulled that thing open and the Frankenstein was laid bare for all to see... I really did not expect this thing to come back to life, much less come back to life with a vengeance. Well done.
Wow!! Nice save there, SMT! And it even does stunts and has a smoke unit. Plenty of room in there for a sound decoder as well. It looks like someone did a Frankenstein with 2 F-7s. That's an Alco, which would have different trucks; those are EMD style. The stripes on the front look like BN.
I like it 👍 looks like a rusty old locomotive that’s been sitting in the train yard for many years 😎
When the frame was spiced, I bet that they used two Bachmann F9A rear halves to make the frame. This would explain the pancake motors.
DUEL pancake motors eh? As in the title.
If you can stop the motors fighting each other you might then have a DUAL drive locomotive. LOL.
Agree with you about the Athearn alternative. Even in Australia, the blue box Athearns were such good value it amazed me that people sometimes paid extra for the pancake and traction tyre alternatives. Even saving a few bucks for those inferior designd seems false economy in the long term.
Just looked at your Life Like Tea Kettle repair. A much superior video than todays Sams Train approah to one he just posted. Could not get it running but his fans are paying over $100 for it on a well known auction site.
The Athearn Blue Box locos are the cockroaches of HO locos. . .nothing can kill them and they will run forever. There's a reason so many designs fell by the wayside and the basic Athearn one lives on today in most new locos. PS Duel is a really fun Spielberg movie from the start of his career. Would make a good modeling project, too.
Your repairing videos are really cool, but I can not get my eyes off that amazing setup. Truly a fascinating and realistic scene.
I'm amazed you can get it all put back together another successful operation from Dr Train I enjoy seeing you fix all these engines
Outstanding work as always Harrison.
I look forward to watching you work you magic with those half wrecked locomotives. You do great work. Even at my age I've learned a great deal from watching your repair videos.
Nice save, SMT! I always enjoy watching you work your magic. Happy Holidays!
Will it run again. That's the million-dollar question. I see these old locos and think no way. But you somehow bring back to life. Very cool. 😎 From Texas
I've never seen you ever fail to repair any locomotives! its quite amazing really.
Another great restoration on this train engine, Harrison 😊👍👍👍! Keep up the great work! I love it how you fix these diesels and steam locomotive ! 😊😊 Wow , great job , SMT !!
I couldn't tell if that frame is plastic or metal.
Many years ago I belonged to an "O" gage club. A number of our locomotives were originally "O 27" with the center rail power pickup and ran on AC.
I did a lot of conversations of those that were actually to scale to "O" gage, two rail DC.
Some of these had twin motors. To do this conversion required cutting the frame between the motors. I then inserted a thin phenolic insulating spacer the same thickness of the material that was lost in the cutting. I then used another phenolic block that bridged between the two sections and very carefully screwed it into place, thereby rendering the frame solid again and using a Dremal and a very fine grinding wheel flushed the screw ends with the frame.
Note: I drilled and tapped holes in the frame for the screws.
The next phase was to remove the drivers and trucks. I then took the wheels from one side and put them on a jewelers lathe and turned the flanges to scale. Then I drilled out the centers of one side and inserted a phenolic plug. Then I knurled the axels. I then drilled out the phenolic to a very tight interference fit and pressed them on to the appropriate side of the truck or axels.
Now comes the challenge of the electric rewire.
The motors were originally AC so I had to remove the original direction control and wired the motors in parallel where the + and - are attached to the appropriate half of the frame. This was before DCC so all control was track based. So to get appropriate light response diodes were required. But when completed they ran very smoothly and actually ran cooler than the AC.
You always amaze me with your talent to repair what many of us would simply scrap!
The " stunts ' remark gave me a good , thank you . Crazy little engine that you got going .Good work .
Hey Man! Been A While Since I've Checked Out Your Channel, Man It's Grown A lot, Super Duper Proud Of You, keep it up! God bless
Harrison, is there any mostly destroyed locomotive you CAN'T fix???? You skills are EXTREMELY IMPRESSIVE!!!
It’s amazing how you can have something that is basically not running and get it up and going I always love watching your videos When I saw the engine smoking I thought that it was going to blow up 😂 keep up the great work
Great turn out for what it is. You done well on this on Harrison. Thanks for taking us a long on this adventure.
Thanks
A rare and dying breed of people who love a challenge. I have a LOT of trains I bought on eBay. Got a great deal. I think there were 7 engines of which 3 weren’t working. I was able to fix 2 of the engines. About 30 pieces of track and 2 transformers along with 15 rail cars. NAVY technical training skills sure helped. Great video!
Very fun video, and still learning from your ability to bring a recked locomotive back to life!!!!!
13:06 I think Hornby need to introduce this locomotive into their range and make it their “Smokey Joe” 😂
Well done Harrison 👍 you never fail to amaze me with your repair skills
Thanks. This reminded me a bit of that dual motor tyco project I saw on your channel a while back.
For a second, I was worried this would be the one you couldn't fix. great work Harrison.
Harrison is magic with these old locos! He can make any locomotive run if he wants to!
Not only fun to watch. But excellent maintenance workmanship. Throughly enjoyable ‼️
Thank you!
That was pretty great watching you put back the train together.
Another great restoration, SMT! I agree with you, that wiring was a mess, and what caused the smoke? I was afraid one motor had burned out.
the train whisperer, another successful repair....weathering looks great on it too.
Wow - you really know what you're doing. Kudos and Godspeed.
I've enjoyed watching you go from an optomistic and hopeful kid full of ignorance and dreams, with nobody telling you that you can't do something. You've made what some adults called mistakes, but your made them learning adventures instead. New skills, new experiences, and much more confidence. You've grown and expanded, and that's what I love about this hobby. You aren't just growing your empire, you're growing as a person.
And you share your experiences here online where everyone can benefit. Well done!
That's just it. In my older videos it took me a lot longer to figure out problems but trial and error teaches you a lot. I still make mistakes and am learning but things have advanced.
I’ve never seen a HO scale Alco with scale smoke! lol. Great video as always.
Very nice video. Thanks for posting this.
Serenity! We have a runner and a good one at that! Cheers from eastern TN
I’ll bet someone took two Tyco/Mantua EMD F7s and cut off and combined the front halves (which would explain the incorrect Bloomberg-M/B truck side frames) together, then found an Alco FA body shell to put on it. At least this way, it gives you all-wheel electrical pickup and all the wheels are driven. 😊
Anothe one retrieved from the great scrapyard in the bin! Great job on this Frankenstein model loco. Your magic touch comes to the fore again. Well done. But when does it go off to the paint shop!!!
Good job Harrison,
You could always take a small aluminum tube the size of your headlight bulb , cut it to fit under the hood up to the headlight, to redirect the headlight so the cab won't be lit up. I used to do this with all my blue box locos and white shell FAs also . Usually the hobby store or hardware store has them for a couple bucks. Use hot glue or Duco cement works great holding them in . Hope this helps.
Thanks for the idea. It would be good if I could attach the lamp to something so it would quit making uneven light.
@@SMTMainline I agree... Give it a whirl
That's really neat ! Excellent repair too !
The red light in the cab as well as the rust makes it look like a ghost train.
That thing really looks like it’s seen better days, congrats on 100k as well!
Thank you!
@@SMTMainline no problem! I’ve got a 462 pacific much like you repaired 2 years ago coming soon!
I've done the double pancake setup on quite a few engines and they always end up working, running flawlessly. Great pulling power especially for brass wheels. I never cut one in half for whatever reason they did but it seems to work lol. Definitely would have purple bathed that unit and repainted it completely. Great video!
I would name this locomotive the Smoking Alco! Excellent job getting the ole girl running again.
That’s a nice locomotive and good job working on it
That loco looks like from some old thriller movie. It looks old and nasty but drives like from hell. It immediately reminded me of truck from the movie Duel (1971).
That's so true. The black rusted paint with a frosted windshield has a lot in common with how they made the truck look.
I'm amazed, Brother... couldn' take my eyes off your work. She's goin' around with power, pullin' freight. One thing... treat 'er right, this beauty needs a paint job. Looks like an old sixties yard switcher with mud-covered livery. Put some lipstick on 'er.
Very amazing Restoration on this alco fa diesel harrison even it had alittle smoke show earlier with the insulation while running it. A model power fa on a bachmann chassis. Very unusual.
Harrison, bringing another Loco back from the dead.
Very well done SMT
12:54 MULTI TRACK DRIFTING!
pretty cool. glad u got it working :)
Hi there, I just stumbled onto your channel, I wanna tell you I find everything interesting 😊
I liked the video .loved the rachet comment you were stuntin thanks made my day bro great content Im hooked
Looks like the Marlboro man had one last smoke! 🤣😜
Well Harrisson you did it again great runner.
Nice save,with that red cab light maybe it's supposed to be an evil Halloween engine
Harrison, I know the reason for the wire burning up. Remember this is a dual engine so the wheels on both ends are contact points. When the train jumped the track the back truck landed on the rail next to it. This caused a the wires to short out across the rack lines. You continue to make it move maintained this short till the wires overheated and caught fire. You will have to be careful with running this one at speed in the future for this very reason. A very simple fix would be to put diodes in line with each wire. This will stop the wrong polarity from back feeding down the wire.
Good job, impressive pulling power for what it is.
Nice job 👍🏻
That nasty thing looks a little bit like the F-Unit from "Runaway Train" 😎
Oh oh you let the magic smoke out.
Thought it was odd as the Model Power and IIRC Cox or Lionel HO FA's had the ARR type B trucks not the Blomberg and the MP had a fairly sizable can motor. That frame just struck me as some sort of MacGyvered running gear under a desired shell.
free smoke effects 🤣 You are a magician!
Pretty sporty locomotive Harrison!
"Roommates with the Marlboro man"... LOLOL!!!
Just shows some good maintenance and a little love can make even a POS run. Good job!
Harrison notch 8 , cool runner speed record coming
It's pretty quick
nice job SMT now you have a custom loco👍
Great job
I like the look of it, It looks like it's a ghost engine that has been left in a junkyard for years.
That's really not a bad looking locomotive! 🙂
Those stripes on the front mean Burlington Northern.
Got a great laugh outta the stunts...... Never seen that on my layout ..... pretty awesome
Entertaining as always thanks
Awesome vidya. As always. Not a bad hauler for $10!
It looks kinda cool! The rust make sure it look like it's seen many better days
A rusty, crusty FA-1 that runs- a little. Pretty realistic I’d say. I played with the full scale ones, same conditions just big and heavy.
That is beautiful weathering....very popular in Europe...the rad rod of model railroading
Another job well done 👏 but that wire was a mess
611 PLEEAASSEE!!!!
Good old Dual Torque motors haha she's Moving!
Hey Harrison, You did an Incredible job Restoring that ALCO FA-1. The Trucks on that Locomotive are EMD Trucks, Not ALCo Trucks. Okay, The Problem with the Smoking Engine is: The Wiring that came with the Locomotive are way too Thin! You have to Solder much of a heavy gauges Wiring. That will solve your problems. 🚂🚂📷🎥
It makes you wonder why they used a model power type locomotive and then put some god-awful bachmann drive system in it. You did good at the restoring it. Basically this locomotive looks to be through hell and back . I noticed when you said it might have been around a smoker the way that it smells. It seems while running it wanted to have one last smoke itself. Lol
Beautiful job good video
Great work. Shall we call this a rebuilt model of FA2-DM. Assign it to excursion or switching duties.
I've been known to weather a little heavy,but lol.. It's a Mad Max Alco. It's new name. Rachet chapter of the SMT manual.
Yep, they didn't hold back with making it look rough.
Kind of got worried there a minute or two when the smoke started rolling out. Glad you got that old engine working. Just please consider giving the poor thing a new paint job as it deserves it. lol
I think one of the pick up wires shorted badly while it was drifting. I'm glad it was that and not the motor.
why does it give me vibes of the ghost truck from the Dual movie, at that high of speed around the corner of the layout near that one house, it looks like it'll come off the rails and demolish the house like you're filming a derailment crash scene in a movie
I can see the similarities with the speed and condition of the locomotive.
This Franken-loco is amazing.
Every video thumbnail I see I always think “it most likely will run”
Then scroll past .
Then I think “but what if it doesn’t”
Then click the video
Very nice. Thank you.
Luv the Marlboro Man mention.
Awesome! Another Frankenstein Loco!!!
Have you ever considered doing a playlist or video series regarding maintenence & repair of older model locomotives/ common ones people might find as non runners or in shops?
Asking as i recently got a older Bachmann Mikado, but having issues finding documentation for it, and dont want to just start disassembly to try and get to bearings and gears.
Just a idea i think would be interesting/helpful, even if its basic videos on common motors or something.
I've done some general advice videos but that's it for now. I might start making videos on each brand and their most common failure points.
The weathering looks cool , makes it look old
Would some OxGard in around the centre hole be just as good as the Labelle oil? (I think so)