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 Posted - May 14 2019 : 12:49:19 AM
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Struggling to get this nice old Varney shell powered up, it is such a nice
signature piece for the zany Armadilloville. Anyone who knows me knows
that I am pretty much a "shake-the-box" kind of modellor, but even so
this looked like a pretty easy conversion from dummy to powered.
First, I got the Athearn BB SW1500 chassis slightly disassembled,
as per the advice of Frank, rather than sawing it in half, which is
what my first instinct was.
Then with a few shims of spare styrene I carefully fitted it into the shell
with careful attention to leveling the chassis so that all four drive wheels
set flat upon the rails and had adequate swing room, and that the axle ends
lined up with the cast on journal boxes. So far, so good.
Upon testing it, it immediately made a habit of derailing, as lo and behold,
the drive truck whether by torsion or malposition of a half millimeter or
so didn't quite set flat, and track has inherent ups and downs in it.
This was cured by adding a few ounces of lead weight, and then it
purred along nice as a kitten; no more derailments.
From there, I added the two coaches, which are connected by means
of a plastic draw bar. They're very light, the coaches, and so I added
an ounce of weight to each.
The second coach kept jumping of the rails, and a closer inspection
showed that there was some lateral tension, like a mini-spring board,
from the drawbar from the locomotive, which raised the front wheels
of said coach just enough off the track to make the flanges crawl over
the rails on curves. Added some more weight, and that seemed to
fix that particular wagon.
Then the third, last, coach would derail from its front axle, pulling
the entire coach off the rails. So I kept adding weight to it until it
weighed close to a full pound, and the locomotive could barely pull the
entire consist at all.
After close inspection, it appeared that the draw bar, again, levered the
front axle up just enough for the flange to jump the rail, and no reasonable
amount of weight was going to fix that.
So I removed the excessive weight, and am now trying to apply a simple set
of horn hooks in place of the drawbar, hoping that this gives more slack. It
seems the drawbar acts as a lever. My hope is that this will relieve any vertical,
or horizontal stress on the trailing coach and allow it roll free.
I hope to heck this works. The micro-physics of HO are not to be
underestimated.
Advice welcome.
Edited by - Chops124 on May 14 2019 12:55:17 AM
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Posted - May 14 2019 : 10:06:31 PM
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Ideally the drawbars should have a tiny bit of slack to give enough room for movement on inclines and rough track, if there is no slack the train isn't going to like anything but perfectly flat surfaces.
If you are planning on converting them to horn hooks, bear in mind that they don't always work too well on two-axle cars as they push them sideways when coupled, which in the case of fixed wheels means that the flange will always be touching the edge of the rail even on straights, unlike with normal cars where the trucks will straighten themselves out by swiveling. In this case the original drawbars will do a better job, as long as they are the correct height and have a small gap so the cars can move up and down with inclines and rough track.
Just a thought, is the loco sitting higher than before? If the loco has gone from 33" plastic wheels at the front to the larger wheels from the SW1500 chassis (38"?) it could be sitting higher than originally designed and simply lifting up the other cars for that reason alone, although looking at the loco the rear still has a 33" wheelset which would actually make it sit lower (at an angle) if the front half was higher. Of course, disregard this if you already have the height difference sorted. The best way to check is to place the front of the loco facing each car and see if the floor line is the same height (then do the same with the rear of the loco).
One thing I would suggest is to install RP25 wheels in pace of the original Varney ones which should work a lot better on curves, as the old pizza cutters tend to like grabbing at rail joints, especially without the help of swiveling trucks in this case.
I would also leave in a small amount of weight at the ends of each car (rather than on the ceiling, which can cause them to be top heavy) so they won't fall off the track as easily, they should weigh roughly the same as a freight car of the same length.
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Posted - May 15 2019 : 12:09:30 AM
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Very good observations. Since the photos were taken, I put metal 33"
wheels in the rear of the locomotive. I'll do a double check on the floor
line, however, as I've tried so many combinations I can't remember any
more what is in and what is out.
Too late now, but it occurs to me I should have reamed out the holes
in the drawbars first. The fact that they gripped their respective
posts tightly enough to become spring boards should have alerted
me to that solution, but sometimes I just can't see the forest for
trees.
I rather hoped that the four wheel coaches would behave like the
British OO stuff I run, which is to say nicely. I am crossing my
fingers that the high degree of slop action in the horn hooks will
create less lateral pressure, but reading your summation I am
not so hopeful now.
Having committed myself this far, will have to see if the horn
hooks will make any difference.
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Posted - May 15 2019 : 6:36:52 PM
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when I ran my Varney Areotrain the 1st time the motor was slower than molasses on FULL POWER! 
I was using a MRC controller too!
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Posted - May 15 2019 : 8:16:00 PM
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| Wow, I would not have guessed that one!
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Posted - May 15 2019 : 9:33:05 PM
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Applying horn hooks made no difference whatever. The wheels
have all been changed to the 33" diameter. Going to try to
modify the bogies a little.
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Posted - May 16 2019 : 12:05:49 AM
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I may have fixed the issues, finally.
1. There was a nasty warp in one of the rails on a curve,
why it didn't derail everything else I'll not know, looked
like one rail took a whack from a track hammer, so I
just replaced it.
2. Tried putting in some Tyco trucks, that didn't do a wit for it.
3. Referring back to my own post about OO single axle
bogies tracking well enough, I removed the original
Varney bogie assemblies and found a few spare
OO wagons, cut them in half, and they slipped
easily into the coach body and, perhaps because
the flanges are a tiny bit bigger, the Aerotrain
with its Athearn drive seems to run quite well.
Will try to bang out a video, tomorrow. Been
tinkering at for four hours nonstop.
The video will like include a real, yes, thanks
to RP I actually got it, TYCO flying Pterodactyl.
Edited by - Chops124 on May 16 2019 12:46:12 AM
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Posted - May 16 2019 : 03:20:22 AM
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| Glad you were able to fix the problem! About the horn hooks, it all depends on how tight the plastic springs are, I've had some horn hooks (mostly Athearn ones that fit in Kadee boxes) that are real tight and they cause the cars to sit at a slight angle when coupled. The Tyco/Life-Like/Bachmann ones are a lot lighter in that regard, although given that Tyco etc. tend to only have them mounted to trucks with a very small wheelbase it probably doesn't have any issues anyway (aside from sudden movements when shunting), compared to having only one axle at the ends of each car where the entire car is pushed to one side due to the couplers being body mounted.
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Posted - May 16 2019 : 1:53:44 PM
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Appreciated your input. Ideally, one tries to find
the most elegant, simple solution, but this
project, while seemingly simple, really led
me down the primrose path. Everything I
tried vexed me until I started experimenting
with OO single axle bogies.
I like the old horn hooks for several reasons:
they are vintage, they are relatively easy to
work with, and they are cheap.
I've done shunting operations with them,
and they work, after a fashion- such as
using a screw driver to uncouple them.
Generally, people that use Kadees are quite
committed to them, but they often put
a great deal of time into getting them to
work and when they fail, it is often in a
spectacular fashion, what with micro springs
hurling off into the ether. But, as micro
detailing, what with rotating journal
boxes, and meticulous air lines, horn
hooks would truly be out of place.
I'm a dyed-in-the-wool shake the
box kind of guy, myself, and while
I enjoy the benefits of the digital age,
I yearn for a simpler analog time.
https://youtu.be/KXWmNmqAzqU
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Posted - May 20 2019 : 9:30:12 PM
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Introducing a signature piece of Armadilloville:
https://youtu.be/yf2e9xTf5nc
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Posted - May 20 2019 : 10:35:52 PM
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LOLOL, awesome video, Chops! Cool Varney Aerotrain.
"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven." - Matthew 5:16
Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/rpmodelrailroads
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rp_model_railroads/
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Posted - May 24 2019 : 1:32:24 PM
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I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to WKS, who kindly
gifted me the piece about a year ago. It has been a burning ambition
to see if it it could motorized.
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Posted - May 24 2019 : 10:42:14 PM
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Glad to send you the items Jeff. I knew you would have more
enjoyment getting the engine to operate. Nice video.
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