Brass Little Joe Repair Manual- What Ajin SHOULD have done

[u18b]

Wow.

With how well the reworking went, I'm surprised it hasn't sold (given what the shelf queens sell for).

[JanesCustomTrain]

Maybe some better pictures wouldn't harm. These pictures do not appeal, too dark, too orange. Take a look how brasstrains.com shows their brass for sale. Just a thought.

Jane

[spookshow]

Yeah, my camera doesn't get along with my brown wooden desk too well - pictures tend to wind up too dark and too "warm". When I relist it I'll see if I can't get some better pictures on a more neutral background. Thanks for the tip.

Cheers,
-Mark

[eric220]

For taking a roster shot, I put the model on the leading half of a piece of white paper, then prop the back if the paper up against a box so that the paper has a nice curve to it. That creates a smooth, unbroken blank background.

[CVSNE]

Wow, that was a lot of work. I'm sure it's a great runner now with all the loving attention a master mechanic/modeler like Ron has expended on this beast.
I'm not in the market for a Little Joe - but I did look at the listing on the 'bay.
One thing you might want to consider - get the terms "N scale" and "Locomotive" in the title of the listing. Right now someone looking for an N scale Milwaukee Road engine may not find it -
Just a suggestion.
Marty

[u18b]

I almost never put N in the title- it is in the N category of course.

But if I have had one complaint/confusion over the years, it is people asking what scale something is.
So there are a lot of people who search and do not know how to read the sub-categories on the left side of an ebay search page.

So yeah, while I don't use up title space, I have found you almost have to place it in the description for the people who don't pay attention or get confused easily.

[u18b]

2024 Update:

Just finishing another Joe rebuild for a customer.   He wanted sound so this is a supplement to the document on my website (see first post.).





Motors are getting scarce these days (2024).  These are Kato little motors from the old Pocket line.  They are 5-pole and small... just right.  The bearings also perfectly match the Ajin motor mounts.




Circuit boards are flipped, soldered together with Atlas copper pick-up strips.  A TCS micro socket for unplugging the shell.
Since space was tight, I shimmed the shell up a bit with white Atlas thrust washers  ( 1.9mm ).




Flywheels are Atlas Geep.. they are smaller and do not scrape.  U-joints are from an old Kato SD40.

[u18b]

He wanted to go all-out and have sound.    Space is VERY tight, but I made it work.

Circuit boards are removed.  I have one to go here.



A plain decoder fits easily in the roof.



An ESU Nano v5 with the new board and shrink wrap removed just barely fit.   I insulated the walls with Kapton tape.  I wrapped the decoder with Kapton and superglued it to the roof.... socket exposed.




Here is the wiring harness.  Left is the speaker mounted in the nose.  Sitting on a custom board with traces cut for the speaker.   Stock light board next and runs under speaker.
Nano board in the middle, stock headlight on right.



Since I lost weight when removing the nose weight, I added weight back in 3 spots.  A squarish lead weight center, Tungsten putty on left....




And Tungsten cubes on the right.



Here's the whole assembly.

[u18b]

And I added a shelf above the front flywheel to keep the wires off of it.

[u18b]

Here are two sound videos and performance tests.

ESU sound files for USA electrics are scarce.   This is a tweaked GG-1 file.   I figured it would be pretty close.

Pulling power is about the same as a Kato 6-axle loco.   This is a moderately heavy intermodal train (a 4-axle Atlas loco cannot pull it alone).

[nkalanaga]

I never heard either a Little Joe or a GG-1, but from what I've read, the Joes were almost silent.  With no transformers or motor-generators to keep cool, about the only running noise was the traction motor blowers.  A DC model actually comes pretty close to sounding like a MILW electric without sound, except for bells and horns.