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The engine is questions an early Atlas/Kato RS11/12 . No pick up strips so I think that takes the wiring suggestion out.
I don't think there is much you can do with the frame - a screw MIGHT work, but if it were me, I'd do this.Normally, the frames had two sets of tabs for two light boards, one in the front and one in the rear. I'm assuming from your description that you just snapped the tab off ONE of these locations (either front or rear) but not both. If I'm right about that, then your best course of action is to hard-wire a small decoder, like an ESU LokPilot, Zimo MX621, or similar size from TCS or Digitrax. You can use the light board for the end of the locomotive with the tabs intact as both a source of power for your hard-wire decoder and (if you want) for the LED (although I'd replace the LED with a warm-white one; the old LED's looked pretty yellow). To do this, make sure you cut the traces from the pickup pads to the LED. Then you can separately wire the LED with your own dropping resistor. Use the traces from the pickup pads (before the cut, obviously) to wire the red and black decoder wires to. Wire the motor as you would have with the TCS GN, and then do your own LED for the end of the loco where the tab is broken.John C.
The other question I had was these motors seem to have a metal casing on them. Is it better to wrap tape around the motor or try to line the interior of the frames ?
I never heard of the motor causing short between the frames on any of those early Kato models (RS-3, RS-11, etc). Pretty much all the motors used in locos with metal frames have metal bodies (the end holding brushes is plastic). I wouldn't worry about this.