Max's Motors pull a commuter- See my two Rivarossi 0-4-0's in action!

[Lemosteam]

Well @mmagliaro 's motors truly are a wonder!  Watch my most beloved two Rivarossi 0-4-0's after motor retrofit pull a commuter train up a 3.17% grade!  Yes ONE loco can do the same task, but I love they way they look together.  Seriously, Max, I cannot thank you enough.  Seeing these two locomotive resurrected brings me to a much happier place 25 years ago.  JFRTheseT man! 

[reinhardtjh]

So cool!  I have two of those little locomotives also.  One is the second N-Scale loco I ever owned.  A Christmas present after bugging my parents for a year after getting the Aurora Postage Stamp set with the F-something diesel.  I wanted a steam engine because of the nearby Arcade & Attica.

I guess I should pull the motor and sent it to Max also.

[Lemosteam]

DOOOO IIITTTTT!!!! 

[nickelplate759]

Now I'm wondering if I should have procrastinated on rebuilding my RR Berkshire with a Sagami motor.  Impressive!

[mmagliaro]

Thanks, John!
This really was my main motivation for doing this.  Look, if you want to cut, grind, regear, you can repower a Rivarossi engine with almost any super-powered motor you want, including a great coreless with a gearhead.  But so many people  can't, or don't want to, do that.  I just knew there were a lot of these old Rivarossi steam locos lying in drawers where the owner would think, "If I could just screw a new motor in there and it would run, that would be great".   So I set about the idea of a "drop in" that would at least be better than the original, and would be robust, so you wouldn't have to worry about it spontaneously melting down.

In truth, old Rivarossi engines CAN be made to run amazingly, but besides the motor, you have attack  the many friction points in that old mechanism.  I made this video (below) to show just what is *possible*.  I have been reluctant to publish this, because I didn't want people to think that if they bought one of my motors, their old engine would just magically run like this.  It won't.  But this shows what the motor is capable of in a smooth, honed mechanism.

I forgot, and so did not list it in the intro to the video, but I got rid of that horrible plastic fork coupling between the motor
and the worm and replaced it with NWSL dogbone/cups universal joint.  Really cuts down on the noise and helps with smoother
starts.

[Lemosteam]

Now I'm wondering if I should have procrastinated on rebuilding my RR Berkshire with a Sagami motor.  Impressive!

@nickelplate759 , see above video from Max.

[jugtown modeler]

Well @mmagliaro 's motors truly are a wonder! 

Impressive results.

Late to the party and behind on my post reading.

@mmagliaro, do you sell drop in motors?
Or is this a custom retrofit?

Thanks,
Steve

[mmagliaro]

Impressive results.

Late to the party and behind on my post reading.

@mmagliaro, do you sell drop in motors?
Or is this a custom retrofit?

Thanks,
Steve

Yes, see
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=51553.0

in the Product Announcements.  I sold 10, and after I get feedback back from all those and I am confident these rebuilds
are solid, then I will be offering them for sale on a general "first come first serve" basis.

And not to kill my own sales... ha ha... but I must stress, that the performance you are seeing in that 4-6-2 video I posted is
NOT typical of what you will get out of a Rivarossi chassis.  Look at the laundry list of things I did to that chassis to smooth it
out, in the opening frame of the video, besides put one of my motors in it.  You need to really smooth out the operation of the chassis, not just plop a new motor in there.  BUT... my rebuilt motors are definitely better than the original, won't melt or burn up like the originals, and they are indeed direct "drop in" replacements.

I will announce in the Product Announcements when I am ready to start accepting orders/requests for these on a general basis.
It should only be a couple of weeks.

[jugtown modeler]

Yes, see
https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=51553.0

in the Product Announcements.  I sold 10, and after I get feedback back from all those and I am confident these rebuilds
are solid, then I will be offering them for sale on a general "first come first serve" basis.

And not to kill my own sales... ha ha... but I must stress, that the performance you are seeing in that 4-6-2 video I posted is
NOT typical of what you will get out of a Rivarossi chassis.  Look at the laundry list of things I did to that chassis to smooth it
out, in the opening frame of the video, besides put one of my motors in it.  You need to really smooth out the operation of the chassis, not just plop a new motor in there.  BUT... my rebuilt motors are definitely better than the original, won't melt or burn up like the originals, and they are indeed direct "drop in" replacements.

I will announce in the Product Announcements when I am ready to start accepting orders/requests for these on a general basis.
It should only be a couple of weeks.

Understand about the 4-6-2. Thanks. That  is particularly  impressive.

Will watch for the announcement. Thanks for reply.

[narrowminded]

That is so cool @Lemosteam and @mmagliaro !  I love the look, double headed with the slope back tenders.

[mmagliaro]

We just have to pretend a G5 broke down and the two A5s's were pressed into emergency service
to pull the commuter on time!

[Lemosteam]

I should mention that after this video, I replaced the original tender trucks wit an MT arch bar in front and an arch bar with short coupler in rear. Both now have FVM 33” x 0.540” wheel sets using the original wiper and screws. Look as older.

Some folks think the wiper goes under the screw head, but it doesn’t. The hole in the wiper fits over the head and is deflected over the conical flange, forcing a sprung wiper onto the axle. It’s not fun trying to get the axles in, as the wiper wants to fling off the truck to oblivion.

This makes for excellent pickup, for an axle wiper design, such that it is, and the FVM wheels look really  good infer the tender. I still might convert one to 2D-T4 dolphin trucks yet...







@mmagliaro , I should have called the train an excursion, pre 1957. Lol. And maybe these were a pseudo class A3sa, lol.

[mmagliaro]

John, you are absolutely correct about the orientation of those tender truck wipers.  I see so many of them put in wrong.
The Fox Valley wheelsets drop right in if you have the Atlas axle length ones.  Yes, they look so  much better.
But even more importantly, the pickup is WAY better than the original Atlas wheels.  The original wheels are not made of a very good metal.  It turns gray and grungy very fast, and accumulates dirt and corrosion in mere hours.  The FVM wheels AND axles stay far cleaner.  The test tender I am using in that "show off" 4-6-2 video has FVM wheels, and I also added lots of weight to the tender.
The improvement was night vs day.
I was also shocked at how much smoother the engine runs.  I would have thought that bad tender pickup would just cause stalling.  But no.  It causes spotty intermittent partial voltage drop, which makes the engine stop at very low speeds, but NOT be stalled, so I would turn up the throttle, and it would move again, and then I would think it was a bind in the mechanism.  But it was the "partial" tender pickup.  Engines that wouldn't start moving until I turned up to about 3.5 volts would start running at 2.0 volts, just from cleaning the wheels and the track.