The ohio tender also had some interesting bits in it, but no sound card.
This will become the tender for the museum loco. Tim got some trucks from Bachmann and the Eureka tender is almost in good shape.
The âalmostâ is because someone broke off the drawbar pin and removed the pcb with the cable connectors. Both locos are missing cabling and a drawbar between them, though Tim found one.
So, Tim is now an expert at dismantling these locos as he had all the parts, and he had no trouble putting the good chassis under the Eureka. He then passed it to me with the tender, with a request to fix the wiring and the sound.
These locos have a little pcb on the body (just visible in this pic,) and a similar one on the chassis that has springy metal tabs - the idea being to pass wheel pickup power to the motor. Iâd never seen one before, but when I found it on the Bâmann wiring diagram and asked Tim, he found 2 of them!
Then thereâs another connector back to the motor. I had to replace them with a pair of connectors, though I could have reused the chassis plate which turned out to be in the stash of bits from Ohio.
This chassis has no springs under the hornblocks (wheel bearing blocks.) Except for one:
Not quite in the right place! So I removed it and inserted 4 soft springs under the blocks/axles. Not as strong as the originals but they will help.
Thereâs a cable from the wheel pickups that goes under the cab to meet the tender pickups, and another cable from the chuff trigger feelers on the back axle. I plugged in my 12V to the track pickups and mounted the loco on rollers, and it worked. I then put an LED in the headlight and it worked too! Thereâs a firebox flicker circuit which may work, but I havenât seen it yet.
As far as we can see, the Eureka boiler is complete with wiring, weights, and switches behind the smokebox door. Thereâs a couple of snipped wires there, which look like the smoke unit supply, but weâre not fixing that.
The Eureka tender now has a speaker, wiring and a tested Phoenix board. The next step is to put connectors on the chuff wires from the engine and test all the electrics.
Tim has all the parts ready to fit. I got the domes out to see how they looked:
Apart from the tarnished brass, they are fine. Weâve been weighing how to polish the boiler bands without hurting the bodywork paint. Tim volunteered to apply Brasso with a Q-tip. That bell will need the same treatment.