Con-Cor PA

[thomasjmdavis]

In the late 1970s, I put away the Horribly Oversized trains of my youth, and took up N scale.  OK, so it had to do with "getting my own place" which was a small 1 bedroom apartment.  Anyway, early on, say about 1978, I bought a Con-Cor PA.  After 35+ years of service, it is beginning to approach the total mileage of its ATSF prototypes, and while it still exerts a lot of tractive effort, the gears have gone from slightly louder than a modern Kato PA to just this side of a coffee grinder.

Question is- does anyone out there make replacement gears for these things anymore?  Came in a blue box, model number 2002 (I assume it is the model number, certainly not the year), on Spookshow's site, it would be identified as the model released in 1972 as later revised with an all white metal frame.  Only revision I made was to mount MT couplers.  Lubed it once every decade whether it needed it or not.

I am going to feel dumb if the answer is - modern Kato gears are interchangeable- but I am trying to avoid taking it apart to measure gears, and then putting it back together one part short- or some such.

Granted, I have newer, smoother, more accurately scaled new Kato units, but somehow, as I get closer to finishing up several M&R baggage cars, it seems only fitting that the Fast Mail should, at least once in a while, run behind this old warhorse that has outlived every other locomotive I owned of its generation, and a couple of the next. Call me sentimental, but if I flip its wiring to run in reverse, it would still win a "tractor pull" against any other locomotive I own. 

[Philip H]

Not sure of Kato or atlas comparability, but if you have the diameter and number of teeth you might be able to get some from NWSL

[drgw0579]

Funny you should bring this up; on my workbench is an old Concor PA which I am reassembling from parts I collected over the years.  Sometimes you can find stuff like this on Ebay or trainshows that hasn't been used much; if Concor did have these in stock, they might cost $30 which is what I would bid for one. 

Having said that, looks like I have a couple worm gears, 1 complete truck, and 1 truck missing the pinon gear (not sure that's the right terminology, but it's the gear that is on the top of the truck). 

PM me; I don't expect to have a use for these.  Or maybe someone else has a complete set.

Bill Kepner

[Mark5]

Concor might actually have the parts - I would call to confirm.

http://www.con-cor.com/roundhse/nparts.htm

[ns737]

HI I would test the mech with out the trucks for noise. then install one truck and test for noise. then test the other truck. the trucks might be ok. the noise could be motor bearings.

[thomasjmdavis]

Thanks for the suggestions, and thanks for the offer drgw- I may be in touch after I get a better idea of the problem.  Considering ns737's point about it possibly being motor bearings, I think I will tear it down (now, when I will do that, no idea- busy week ahead) and see what I can see.  I think I may have a spare motor in a box of old parts I picked up on eBay.  Also have found a couple gears in the trucks of a dummy- not one of the original dummies with the screw on trucks, but I have a later one that is the same frame and trucks as the powered, just no motor or other guts.  May have been powered at one time and robbed for parts- I picked it up used.

[Doug G.]

If there are any worn gears, the ones most likely to be worn are the worm gears (the ones the worms drive) because the worms swipe against the teeth. The spur gears in the trucks are unlikely to be worn if you have kept it fairly well lubricated.

Another source of noise, a sort of hashy-type noise, is the gears on the motor shaft working inside the cup gears. I have put some fairly heavy (wheel bearing) grease in there to stop that. My Con-Cor PAs and DL109s of that era are actually pretty quiet. Almost as quiet as modern locos with just kind of a little bit louder hum to them.

Doug

[randgust]

The other alternative is that you can often pick them up used off of various sites just as parts donors.

A well-designed locomotive (which is essentially a Kato under there) has value.   The body shell and paint may be dated, but the mechanism design was the best of its era.   Your odds are usually with you that for locomotives that have been superseded by 'newer/better/, that the originals may not be that worn out.

The five-pole motors that are in those are what I repowered Model-Power RSD15's with.   The motors are REALLY good.

Hard to say what's making the racket.  It's the same design of 'spur in cup' as the Rapiido GP's, and those were really hard to shim and tune to quiet down.   I used to use the heaviest LaBelle grease I could find in there.    Do a noise test with the trucks removed and apply some load on the worm with a toothpick or similar, and feel and listen to the cup gears work.   That should give you a pretty good idea if it is coming out of the cup gear/spur, or the worm gear/worm.    I 'think' those were a metal-on-metal mesh, so I'd guess that's your wear point.    If you don't have really sharp curves, you may even be able to get away with shaving the truck tolerances (bearings) down to get a slightly tighter mesh between the worm and the worm gear.

My experiences with the Rapidos were that the metal-on-metal gear meshes were the one place where it was really necessary to darn near keep them swimming in grease, completely unlike modern gearing where that's the last thing you do.   It was kind of scary when you would clean them and find tinges of brass in the lubrication, you knew the gears were wearing down.

[Doug G.]

I think the original Con-Cor PAs have a brass worm, plastic worm gear.

Doug

[peteski]

I think the original Con-Cor PAs have a brass worm, plastic worm gear.

Doug

Weren't those trucks similar in construction to the original Kato/Atlas RS-3?  metal inside-frames, plastic sideframes, and all gears are plastic?

[Doug G.]

Yes, quite similar, even to the way current is transferred from the metal truck halves to the chassis - the weight of the chassis resting on the turrets of the trucks. No separate contact strips. Of course, oxidation can be a problem here but it works well if clean.

Doug

[nkalanaga]

Peteski:  If I remember mine right, the only metal gears were on the end of the motor shaft, that fit into the cup gear, and the worms.  Everything else was plastic.  I never did have any luck with the PAs, and don't know offhand where mine are.  They may still be in the old house, or the burglars may have gotten them.  Only Katos I ever had that I couldn't keep running, so I kept my MiniTrix Fs.  Maybe just they didn't like cat hair?

[peteski]

Peteski:  If I remember mine right, the only metal gears were on the end of the motor shaft, that fit into the cup gear, and the worms.  Everything else was plastic.

Oh ok, I was thinking more about the gears inside the trucks.

[Doug G.]

Yes, all gears are plastic except the worm. The gear that drives the cup gear is actually plastic too, at least in the second version. Maybe the original version had a metal gear there (Yes, it was. I just looked at the review of the original version in the March, 1968 MR and it shows one of the gears on the motor shaft and it's metal).

The original version could be problematic because the motor wasn't the greatest but the second version, with the shortened motor (the ones Randy used to repower RSD-15s) are really good motors and result in a reliable loco.

Doug

[u18b]

Can you post a photo of the part you need?

I may have a few gears.