In case you don't know the

In case you don't know the history, the United brand was imported from Japan by Pacific Fast Mail.  They also imported Tenshodo.  United was unpainted, Tenshodo painted.  The PFM engines were state-of-the-art in their day and highly respected.

Foam

If Pine-Sol doesn't clear away the foam residue, acetone might.  Nice project for out of doors.

Please report how well the foam cleaned up

 I am  fortunate to have several Pacific Fast Mail models.  The detail is very good to my eyes, and it is a simple matter to replace the open-frame with a can motor if I wish. 

I do have one or two items with foam clinging to them.  So far, I have gently scrubbed it off with a plastic toothbrush.  I did not want to use any solvents on foam, fearing it would either 1. partially dissolve the foam and stick it more tightly to the model, or 2. dissolve any clearcoat or paint, and make the brass more susceptible to tarnish and corrosion.

The only work needed was to recently open up all the gearboxes and removed the 40 to 50 year old white grease, and replaced it with a drop or two of very clingly gear oil. The open-frame motors get a few drops of thin bearing oil.

Not three drops of gear oil, or it starts to leak out and coat everything like the pink stuff in The Cat In The Hat.

pine sol in a sonic tub. just

pine sol in a sonic tub. just today's use and a stiff brush. so far great results.

just dropping the parts in the cleaner one can see a dark stuff float off the workings. did a number of "cleanings" and mostly let it soak for most of the day. used a stiff plastic bristle brush (clean eye brow brush). it is narrow and strong enough to get into small areas a wider brush can not.

this evening i dumper out the used and poured in fresh, redoing the cleaning, and will brush again. then rinse real good, and will advise on the job.

it was very bad on the rods, almost shiny clean now.

this loco was painted, so not sure if the rods were also painted, or left shiny.

i dropped the whole under frame in the stuff. maybe next unit will take it apart? but hope i do not find another one like this. it was very bad.

after i get it running good, then on to a can motor, and maybe new gearing and then dcc.

well just got through

well just got through inspecting what has been in the cleaner all day today. using only 100% pine sol, in a sonic tub, (cheap one from harbor freight), with a couple of light scrubbing.  great results removing the old foam.

but also is removing some of the old paint.

now to remove it and rinse good. relub and let dry completely, then test.

well finding out not all of

well finding out not all of the factory motors want to run when installed. but run on the bench.

reasons?

units are lubed,

gears turn freely,

no shorts. ( that i can find).

any reason i should not repower? regear?

would like to go dcc here so a can/ w flywheel would be best. 

mostly 2-8-0’s some larger. couple articulateds.

not everything is the united brand.

Discard these old open frames

Discard these old open frames when you want to run your brass really. In the course of time the force of the magnets have dwindled and as result this old open frames do not have the guts to propell the loco properly. Of course, they run on the workbench, but under load, even under very light load, the rpms fall down, also the torque, but the amperage rises steeply up. In many cases the amperage can rise so high, that it will overload the motor output of the decoder.

My advise, do not use the old open frames when you intend to run DCC. Otherwise it's a matter of frying, either deocoder or motor and even escaping of the famous magic smoke.

2-8-0, made by United, imported by PFM, open frame replaced by a Faulhaber coreless can motor type 1624 12V, original gearbox, motor and gearbox connected by universals, torque lever for gearbox.

Flywheel only necessary for analog running, when only running DCC no flywheel is necessary. You can influence the coasting by adjusting the CV4 to your needs.

My 2 Cents

Lutz

no flywheel needed? i thought

no flywheel needed?

i thought the reason for the flywheel was to get more of a even start for the motor, as well as slowing to a stop. i guess somehow the computer controls this for you, replace a cheap hunk of metal with a costly computer chip?

but yes i plan on dumping all the open frame motors, for can motors.  tried buying a number yesterday, but the only brick-n-morter shop close to me (tried to support such), can not get any. not sure if worth it is even trying nwsl at this time. so need to find a suppler who will be around in the future (trying to keep to the same motor line is a good thing to me). any brands available out there in good supply?

As long as there is no

As long as there is no decoder on the market, which is capable to use the kinetic energy accumulated in a rotating flywheel, this device is useless in combination with a decoder. As told, in DCC mode it is your choice how smooth your loco reacts when moving the throttle knob. It can reach from a sudden immediate acceleration, like a race car, when you rip your throttle slap-bang open or your model loco reacts like an real loco with a train behind and accelerates softly and slowly. This is determined by the adjustments which you make to the decoder:

CV3 determines the acceleration

CV4 dtermines the deceleration

It's your choice how fast or how slowly your loc ein acceleratinh and decelerating. Modern decoders have a brake function too, which als also adjustable by the user.

And can motor is not equal to can motor. There can be big differences. In general avoid can motors with strong cogging. These are not good enough for running a loco smoothly. Have a try an turn the motor shaft by hand. In most cases you can feel a cogging when the armature latches by magnetic forces in certain positions. As a rule of thump, each fewer the cogging force is, each smoother it will run. The smoothest of all are coreless coil motors, as there, caused by their design, is no cogging at all. Next to this ideal are 5-pole motor with skew wound armature.

Lutz

...

If it runs on the bench but not in the locomotive, then you have an open or a short.  Most of these old brass steam locomotives need one rail electrically connected to the drawbar opposite to the drivers that pick up power from the other rail.  This is because the drivers are supposed to pick up power from one side and complete the circuit through the tender wheels on the opposite side.

To check for a short, use a meter and check between the drivers.  If you have continuity between the left and right drivers, you have a short.

will run when screwed to the

will run when screwed to the frame. just not with the drive line hooked up. i have some old weak motors here.

as to dcc i have everything to learn here. as of today not even one inch of track layed down. but hope to have the start of my helix done by the end of june, as well as the yard, and engine maintenance tracks. (time problem right now, or should i say lack there of.)

but as to can motors i know nothing of any of them, as i have no source i can touch, only order online via flea-bay.  what i know as "big" names are not available right now, or at least the only b n m shop says can not get them. guess i get to blow a day, and $100.usd in fuel to get to a big shop, if they are still there. (santa clara, ca).

Open Frame Motor Replacement

Before "dumping" all your open frame motors  you might consider the advice given by Mark Schutzer 

http://www.markschutzer.com/

Furthermore, from your observation that the motor runs when removed from the locomotive but does not run when installed...I would say it is highly likely that your motor magnet (an Alnico V or VI) has gone kaput.  A supermagnet replacement would cost less than $10 (sans shipping).   I  you had a remagnetizer you could just zap the old Alnico.  You still see this zapping being done in Europe but I have not heard of anyone doing it in the US for quite some time (over 30 years).  

If you use the two stack SM solution you can still use the screw to help hold the two stacks in place and I would recommend getting N52 SMs for the two stack solution.  If you purchase an SM block of the same size/shape as the Alnico you should use N42s to get the same performance that the loco had at time To with the Alnicos.  If you do use N52s of the same size/shape as the old Alnico you will really slow the top speed of the loco down quite a bit.  That may be ok if  you're dragging heavy freight up a grade but you won't like running your passenger manifest at 20mph.  

It is true that can motor pricing can be really cheap on the internet these days.  BUT...what you're buying when you score one of these el cheapos is anybody's guess.  They are usually surplus motors with 2.0mm (and even 1.5mm) shafting which will not match up to your 2.4mm shafting so you have to go mucking around to find adapter bushings.  Secondly, you have to reasonably match up the rpms of the can motor to that of your OFMs, etc. etc. And you really should know what the performance of the can motor is at load in addition to the unloaded specs.  These can motor are made for apps that don't seem to require any significant under load performance.  Case in point..I have 6 Bachman Spectrum steamers...5 of the 6 run well enough for my liking but one (the 4-8-2) won't pull a breath of air (and the replacement motor module ran the same).  Ostensibly, the motors are the same except that they aren't.  I think the 4-8-2 just got a bad bunch of motors with weak magnets).  

So, if I were you I would at least try the SM solution.  Good luck.  

Gentlemen, remember ...

... Model Railroad Locos are powered by physics and not by esotericism.

And scratching my head; there was some old proverb, that you can't ride a dead horse, isn't it?

Lutz

. . .

Second the option of replacing the old magnet with SuperMagnets (SM)  to revive old open frame.  Save you from all the gear-train-hook-up-matching-shaft-size and all that nightmare. Cost less that can motor upgrade.

Lowers amp draw and gets nice slow / smooth running.

https://www.kjmagnetics.com/

Fly-wheels help smooth out the cogging effect of certain motors.

Marc

Close on the horse

The saying is "beating a dead horse". Meaning no matter how much you try to get the result you are after you are just wasting your time. ....or something of that ilk.

. . .

Except the horse ain't dead yet.

Marc

Well, that's good news

has anyone called a veterinarian? Carry on.

All These Dead Horses

All these dead horses. Look at the one up in the left corner, i tried to beaten it. The results were 1.3 Amps running free without any load at 12 Volts. Under strain the dead horse sucks 5.2 Amps at 12 V. But the sucked 70 Watts does not mean that there are 70W and a great deal of torque output are at the motor shaft. Nope, the max. will be at it's best 0.007W of output. With other words, you will have a nearly 70W heater here inside of your loco. O.k. with refurbished magnets the heating force will be only 50 - 60W. But G-Scale decoders mounted on the roof of your H0 loco are looking really unaestetic...

And why you have difficulties to use available parts to match different shaft diameters: https://ppw-aline.com/collections/miscellaneous-re-powering-parts?

@Rick

Thank you for the correction of the proverb.

Lutz

Shafting

How about the use of flexible rubber tubing like the use of model airplane fuel line material?

It is at best the second best

It is at best the second best solution behind universal joints. If you go the silicone tube route make sure that the motor shaft and the connected shaft align properly without any angle between the two. Otherwise you need to deform the tube on every revolution.
Regards, Volker