E-R Sharknose locos -- slowpokes?

[wm3798]

I'd have to rummage through a mountain of photos to see, but I recall wiring decoders into an A-B set, both powered... I think... 

I can't recall if the drives are identical with only the shells being different?  Can you just hunt down the A shell you need and put it on the B drive?

Lee

[brokemoto]

At one point, someone sold a decoder specifically for this thing.  It was an easy conversion, as no wiring or soldering was necessary.  The motor brushes on the stock version are on the circuit board.  The contact is made through the circuit board, so, the motor already is isolated.  You simply unscrewed the stock circuit board and screwed in the replacement decoder.  Sadly, this decoder is long out of production.

The A will fit onto the B chassis, but you will have to wire in a headlight, if you want one.  The A unit chassis has some kind of a plastic piece that conforms to the shape of the shark nose, but, I am not sure of its function.  The A unit shell will stay on the A chassis without it,  On a related note, the V-Line shark shell will fit onto the E-R chassis with a minimum of work.  The amount of work required is similar to putting a LL plastic frame FA-2 shell onto a metal frame chassis.

[160pennsy]

At one point, someone sold a decoder specifically for this thing.  It was an easy conversion, as no wiring or soldering was necessary.  The motor brushes on the stock version are on the circuit board.  The contact is made through the circuit board, so, the motor already is isolated.  You simply unscrewed the stock circuit board and screwed in the replacement decoder.  Sadly, this decoder is long out of production.

I have converted one of my E-R Sharknose AB sets using the below instructions.

https://tcsdcc.com/installation/n-scale/1598

Also had to replace a failed motor in the B unit by swapping in a Bachmann F7 motor ordered from their website.

https://bit.ly/31FlBmx

[Sharky_McSharknose]

I suppose that, like a lot of F units, the "best" way to go coupler-wise is...Unimates?

Mark in Oregon

PS: Now to find a matching A unit... 

For couplers, I used these instructions on my A-B set to have Micro-Trains couplers for the outer couplers and Unimates for the A-unit-to-B-unit couplers. Linked to archived website since Aztec is out of business and who knows how long the original website will remain active...

https://web.archive.org/web/20190406183025/http://www.aztectrains.com/shark.html

I'd have to rummage through a mountain of photos to see, but I recall wiring decoders into an A-B set, both powered... I think... 

I can't recall if the drives are identical with only the shells being different?  Can you just hunt down the A shell you need and put it on the B drive?

Lee

The only difference between the A and B unit frames is a plastic "nosecone" underneath the front of the shell. The A unit's is angled, the B unit's is squared-off. I think it also acts as a light blocker on A units, but I don't have my engines in front of me. You can see the A unit's part in the first picture of the link I posted.

[OldEastRR]

I have converted one of my E-R Sharknose AB sets using the below instructions.

Did the DCC conversion up the top speed? If so, to what?

[160pennsy]

Did the DCC conversion up the top speed? If so, to what?

Have not messed around with any of the CVs or settings that pertain to top speed. They work fine as is for pulling my freight trains.

[peteski]

Did the DCC conversion up the top speed? If so, to what?

I don't see how that would make a difference.  In N scale DCC voltage is around 13V, which is the same, or lower, than what many DC throttles output.  DCC decoder has no means to make the track voltage any higher.  No magic!

[Iain]

I actually like the slow speed of them; kind of goes with the reputation of the real thing (if not the actual fact).

As far as decoders go, a Digitrax DZ125 can be hardwired in with half the board cut off.

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And, for couplers, the front coupler can be mounted to the black delrin spacer, and the rear coupler can be mounted by drilling and tapping for a pair of 00-90 screws, one on either side of the frame, and screwing on a piece of styrene to which a Z scale coupler is in turn screwed.

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With this arrangement, I have, with one locomotive, pulled a forty car train.

[OldEastRR]

Does look like a pretty easy DCC conversion -- the hard part of split frame and isolated motor is already done for you.

[Blazeman]

Adam (mu126aeh) did a set of decoder installs for me on a pair.

[Alwyn Cutmore]

I have a number of these units and will be re powering them with LifeLike  FA2 Mechs. I bought a set of GN A-B-B-As some time back but ghave not got around to the conversion. They should finish up much better running units.