Briggs Models 8-40-CM

[Scottl]

Looks really great. Mine must be on the truck tonight going down the 401 

[jjb62556]

Received mine here in Minnesota yesterday.....Cleaning up flash today...work on trucks tomorrow......Jim

[jjb62556]

I have a question...Is this shell made to fit the SD-40-2  frame with the decoder replacement board.......It doesn"t seem to fit with the decoder board...board is much longer than the old DC board.  Any ideas?   Jim

[jjb62556]

Figured it out.....Turn the frame around  front to back......DUH   Thanks , Jim

[BCRail_FSJ]

Got my 3 a few days ago and gave them a good look over tonight.   Looks like a fun winter building project

[BCR 570]

Got my 3 a few days ago and gave them a good look over tonight.

I had to check my copy of Dale Sanders' book to remind myself that the Dash 8-40 CMs actually ran on the Fort Nelson Subdivision; apparently just three months out of the year when the ground froze in winter and allowed them to run through.

Can't wait to see your snow scenes! 

Tim

[Scottl]

Mine arrived in the mail today and is underway- trucks going together nicely.  Anyone built one up yet?

[BCR 570]

Will we see a BC Rail or CN one first?

For those at Trains 2014 in Burnaby this coming Saturday, Jeff will have a few kits with him for sale.  If you stop by our PGE/BCR tables we can connect you with him.


Tim

[bnsfdash8]

Mine will be a BCOL unit, if the kit ever gets here that is. 

[craigolio1]

Has anyone started this kit yet. I have one truck done. I'm wondering if anyone else has done the trucks yet, and did it take you 6 hours. I have three more to go. Holy cow. It needed a ton of work to get it rolling and I managed to strip a tooth off of one gear so it's only two axle drive.  Hopefully now that I know what to do the next three will take less time.

Here's what I had to do:

Rub the bottom on some sand paper so there will be clearance between the truck bottom and the rails. If you don't' you can do everything below and it still won't roll.

File the outsides thinner so the wheel backs don't touch

File the insides so they don't rub on the sides of the gears

At the ends, cut/drill out the spot over the gear so the teeth don't rub on the ends but leave a strip at the bottom to hold it together

The piece that you left above, inside of the ends, notch them out a little so the gears don't rub

The cross brace on the bottom, notch it out so the gears don't rub on it.

I also shaved the pins off of the side that the electrical pick ups are supposed to attach to. The pick ups are missing one hole so you are just supposed to shave that one and glue them on. I imagine I would break the side frames off pretty quickly with regular handing. So what I did is:

 shave off the pin that has the missing hole.

Drill a #65 hole where there should be one on the electrical pick up.

Shave the other pin off and mark it's center with an awl (sewing pin) Edit: I changed this later due to issues with alignment. I now glue the contact on and then after everything is centred and dry, I drill through the hole with a number 72 bit to accommodate a .025" rod. I found that drilling a hole for .035" rod often caused the contact to pop off and have to be realigned by eye.

Drill out this hole with a #65 bit and insert a piece of .035" rod. Edit: see above. Now changed to insert .025" rod but after the contact is glued on.

Tape the pick ups to the side frames and drill a number #65 hole using the two mounting holes in the pick up as a guide

Use the pin to mark the center of the holes where the axles go

Remove the pick ups and drill a hole to accommodate the tips of the axles

When you assemble the trucks glue the electrical pickups on per the instructions, then once dry, drill a #65 (changed to #72 hole) into the truck and insert the .035" rod (changed to .025" rod)

Now the side frames can be glued on and have a very solid attachment that will never come off, by accident any way.  The side frames still have the #65 hole. This extra size allows a little wiggle room to make sure you get side frame in just the right spot. Having the pin go through the contact into gear box still produces a very strong bond so your side frames won't pop off by accident.

If you use just a little CA during assembly then you can pop them off if you have to.

Do this allowed me to temporarily assemble them to check clearance, which I had to do probably 100 times.

Wow.

Good luck and please post results!

Craig

[bnsfdash8]

I got one truck together with plenty of foul words. It works so so in one direction but binds in the other. I'm going to take it back apart and and try again.



I also got a pretty good fit of the fuel tank and shell on the chassis. I think it needs to go down a touch more to close the gap between the tank.

[craigolio1]

Foul words indeed. Since last posted I've managed to break it while making more modifications but at least I know what to do before hand now so I don't ruin the others.

Once it's in the chassis it won't rock up or down at all, or turn very well so unless your layout is flat with 30" curves, do the following:

The brass bearing plates need to have those shoulders cut off so they better resemble the plastic clips that hold the truck in the chassis.

Narrow the clippy thing that holds the truck in so it's only as wide as the clip it self.

Sand the under side of the clip a little. It not al talk as the Kato so it won't allow the truck to rock.

Sand the top off of the curved shoulder at the bottom for the same reason. Edit: hold off on this until you test run it. Read my later post about what happened during assembly. Might not need to be done.

That should do it. Here is a photo comparing the modified part to the stock part. Now it turns much better and will rock so you can enter a grade easement.

There's also a couple of other photos showing some modifications, that can be seen, from my description above.

[craigolio1]

Oh, and Reese, double check that the gears aren't running on the ends where you can see that I cut it out. I was having binding issues as well until I cut those out. Now I have it back together and I think it's good to go.

Hopefully the next three take less than 8 hours each.

Craig

[craigolio1]

Here's one more:



It's hard to see but the Kato truck turns much better , even with my modifications.

I think I'll grind a bit off the inside of the loco chassis to allow it to swing more. I have this truck running pretty good and I don't want to disassemble it again. Plus, there isn't much more that I can remove without it coming apart. I think if I shave about 1mm off each side of the inside where the truck swivels it'll work much better.

Craig

[bnsfdash8]

Thanks Craig. I have a feeling the gears on mine are binding against the ends of the gear case.