4-4-0 Conversion Redux

 It has been a while since I have visited this topic. In my last post on the subject the body and tender had been completed and sent out for paint. To make a long story short, they never got painted and returned, so as a result I have had the conversion hardware in a box for the past 7 years or so.

 Recently I got another chance to perform this conversion, on a completely different locomotive. Since the last time I have learned some new tricks as far as the tender wheels are concerned, which was actually going to be the next topic on this subject.

I will be restarting the entire series as I am performing the conversion from the start, so unlike my last post on the subject there will be pictures this time. This post will not be a part of that series insofar as doing the actual conversion, it is more of a "more to come" sort of post for those who were interested in converting a locomotive of their very own. 

The normal method of completing the Nn3 conversion on a Bachmann 4-4-0 tender is to file and carve the constituent pieces of the existing tender trucks to narrow them to 6.5 mm gauge. However, anyone familiar with the Bachmann 4-4-0 knows that the weak point in the entire mechanism is, in fact, the tender trucks, and narrowing them doesn't improve them a single bit.

To put it bluntly, the tender trucks are mechanisms of pain and sorrow, created by evil hell-spawn out of suck and fail for the sole purpose of causing tears and sadness. To say they suck is to bring grave insult to vacuum itself. I am certain that some engineer who worked for Bachmann long long ago secretly hated N scale and wanted to see it fail, and this was his contribution.

The problem is they are not free rolling in any sense of the word. Sure, you can get the wheels to move on their poop-metal stub axles, but they don't free wheel, even after liberal applications of Conduct-A-Lube oil, and they cause so much drag that the locomotive can't usually even pull the cars in the train sets they came in. They sit on the tracks with their drivers spinning helplessly as the train sits like a stone or moves so slowly that it is barely moving at all. In spite of their traction tires, the drivers flail about, causing only violent vibrations to the locomotive body until it finally flings itself off the tracks in disgust. 2 to 3 cars is about all you can expect if you are lucky, and all of this misery is due to the horrid tender trucks.

Fortunately for us Nn3'ers, in the past seven years there is a newcomer to the Z scale scene, and their name is Rokuhan. What has that got to do with this? Simply put, they have created all-wheel pickup bogies (trucks to those of us in the US) that have the same sort of needle-point side frames as used on the Kato Mikado as well as the newer Bachmann steam locomotives. (See Bachmann? We know you can do better!)

These trucks are readily available by buying their SA003-1 non-powered type A trailer. This link goes to Z Track Center, which is where I found them for $15.75 plus shipping, and I have found that to be about the cheapest place to get them.

Note that there is also a powered chassis, which may be useful for other things. There are also knuckle couplers if you prefer to use them rather than installing body mounted Micro Trains couplers, which may be a bit easier for the 4-4-0 conversion. I already had the Micro Trains coupler installed, but the installation of the Rokuhan bogies raised the tender body up enough that I had to shim the coupler to put it at the right height. More on that in a bit.

These bogies can easily be modified to put pickups on Republic Locomotive Works Nn3 kit locos (if you can find them; an appeal to Monroe Models is in order here), and better yet, they will work on the Bachmann conversion. The side frames have to be sanded off so that side frames from the original Bachmann or Micro Trains arch bar trucks can be glued on, or you may be able to find 3D files that uses the contact plates and wheel sets; I know they exist. 

I have been working on a proof of concept on my sole remaining Nn3 4-4-0 and I have to say the results are promising. I just had it orbiting a 195mm radius circle of track with 7 EBT freight cars made from RLW kits (which are quite heavy for their size) and a narrowed Bachmann old-time combine, a task which usually left the poor loco spinning it's wheels.

As I mentioned, the truck replacement causes the tender body to sit up a bit more than the stock trucks, which means the locomotive chassis has to be filed a bit to keep the rear drivers seated securely on the rails. This also means the driveshaft is angled downwards from the tender to the locomotive, but this hasn't so far caused a problem even with the thick clunky driveshaft on my present model. If you are using the new and improves mechanism with the narrow driveshafts, this should be even less of the non-problem that I am having with mine (by the way, this new series will be based on the newer chassis, so there will be pictures of that).

All in all I'm excited to get started. Stay tuned!