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 Posted - May 11 2016 : 4:31:13 PM
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Some time ago, I got a Mantua Prairie with a tender I didn't like and temporarily put a slope back tender behind it:
Recently, I was at a swap meet and found a dealer with two tenders from Tyco Power Torque 0-6-0's. He did not have the engines for them and let me have them cheap (2 for $5). Here's one of them:
The body is practically identical to the ones on the Mantua Prairie, but the frame is just a sort of Tyco car frame with truck mounted couplers.
It turns out that the mounting lugs are a direct fit for the frame of a slope back tender and the truck spacing matches that of the Prairie tender. Here's the slope back tender's frame dropped into the new body:
The one difference between this body and the one made for the Prairie is that it has no place to body mount a coupler. I notched the end beam and added a block of plastic at the proper height for a Kadee coupler box:
I drilled and tapped the mounting block and screwed on a coupler:
I like to add a backup light to the Prairie. This one came from the slope back tender. The uncoupling lever was soldered together from .020" bronze wire and test fitted:
Because of the drop-in fit of the body on the frame, this project turned out to be a whole lot easier than I expected. It's still a bit incomplete because I've primed the uncoupling lever and am waiting for the primer to dry. I'm also out of engine black paint, so the project will resume when I have the paint and the time.
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - May 11 2016 : 7:03:34 PM
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| Pretty clever little swaparoo there, scshaggy.
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Posted - May 12 2016 : 02:25:43 AM
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nice swap
Modeling on the cheap
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Posted - May 12 2016 : 02:45:36 AM
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Always nice when a project like this turns out to be minimal-effort, isn't it? Looks very good, look forward to seeing video of her running with it.
What did you do with the PowerTorque drives from those tenders?
Feedback-hungry attention w****
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Posted - May 13 2016 : 5:19:15 PM
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Brandon-Those tenders never had powertorque drives, the drive is in the locomotive. Tyco just stuck some steam wheels on the powertorque truck, stuck a single side rod from the rear wheel to the piston, and stuck it under an 0-6-0 shell.
scsshaggy-What happened to the valve gear? It's gone on the second pic of the engine.
-Peter
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Posted - May 13 2016 : 7:59:27 PM
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quote:What happened to the valve gear? It's gone on the second pic of the engine.
Originally posted by dastumer - May 13 2016 : 5:19:15 PM
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I moved it to an 0-6-0 that I use more often than I use this engine. I figured I'd enjoy it more, there.
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - June 04 2016 : 3:15:18 PM
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At last, I got a chance to finish up the new tender with paint, numbers and real coal in the bunker:
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - June 05 2016 : 12:46:31 AM
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| That turned out real nice shaggy. Really slick.
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