Hi fellas, this is my first post, although I have been lurking for a long time and learned a lot, I finally have a question. I need to remove the boiler on my AML K-4. So far I have removed the front pilot, rear trucks, the smoke box door and a large bolt that holds it on. Now I’m stuck. Is there anyone out there that has a K-4 that might be able to help?
George
I don’t have an answer for you…I don’t have one so I’m of little help.
But, Welcome aboard. Somebody should be around to answer that for you…or be able to tell you were to find the answer.
George, I’ll alert Chuck of your problem and I’m sure he will post here. He has had his down to the frame for a complete make over. Nick Jr
I have the same problem, I need to install DCC in mine, and the dopes connected the track pickups to the motor and the lighting board INSIDE the loco, even though there are plenty of unused pins in the connector between the loco and tender.
George, are you changing to DCC or DCS or something? Maybe we can collaborate?
Regards, Greg
The reason I want to remove the boiler from my engine is to find out why the drivers do not pick up track power and the motor on/off switch has been removed from the circuit. I bought the engine used, and knew in advance it had been “modified” However the engine does run just fine with power supplied from just the tender. I do not intend to run DCC at this time, but I might later.
I did talk to Cliff at Accucraft last week and was given instructions how to disassemble the engine, but apparently I wrote them down wrong, or did not understand what he was telling me, or both. But he is unavailable until Mon or Tues next week, so I was hoping to find info here, so I could work on it this weekend.
The part of disassembly I cannot figure out is the location of a row of 3 or 4 bolts that are supposed to be under the cab on each side. Cliff also said the cab did not need to be removed. I did find hex bolts along the sides of the boiler about 3 inches in front of the cab. They do not seem to be holding anything together except detail parts. There is also a bolt accessible between the front two drivers, which I think screws into the center weight, but removing that did not help either.
Since writing the above, I have found five screws on each side of the BACK of the engine, below the cab and on each side of the drawbar. Removing them seperates the cab from the frame but still does not allow the boiler to be removed.
Hi George, I’ll see if I can help you out as Nick Jr, stated I’ve had mine entirely apart and infact it’s apart again!
Tha’ts good that you found the screws that hold the cab down onto the deck as removing the cab does make the boiler easier to remove.
If you look at the back of the engine in the plug receptecle area under the folding cab/tender deck or should I say just above the plug receptecle there are 2 straight headed screws that go into the boiler. You can get to them by going thru the same square hole that the plug receptcle pokes thru.
The ash pans need to be removed that are ahead of the cab on both sides of the firebox bottom as they wrap under the firebox and the boiler can’t be pulled up as the ashpans will hit the lead weights that are mounted on the frame inside the boiler.
Also on the reverse gear there’s a small hex bolt that needs to be removed to disconnect the linkage. It’s located on the engineers side running board above the first driver…the linkage comes thru the running board.
It’s a pain in the butt to get these brass things apart and I always kinda touchup the boltheads with some paint when I have it back together.
I always remove the front short running boards and brackets that are bolted onto the smokebox so thatI can remove the diagonal braces that run down to the front pilot beam…I don’t know if it’s neccessary but it seemed to help and get some parts out of the way.
Hope this post will help.
Chuck
Greg Elmassian said:
I have the same problem, I need to install DCC in mine, and the dopes connected the track pickups to the motor and the lighting board INSIDE the loco, even though there are plenty of unused pins in the connector between the loco and tender.George, are you changing to DCC or DCS or something? Maybe we can collaborate?
Regards, Greg
What good is it to have a power disconnect switch when the loco will still move when the switch is “off”?? All it disconnects is power going to the tender! Whoever dreamt that up should be fied!!
I argued with St. Aubins about this issue…those folks claim that DCC can be installed without re-wiring the thing but I can’t understand how unless the pickup brushes were removed from the drivers…then your stuck with Accucrafts crappy tender wheel power pickups.
Next…just ask Nick Jr. about that crappy chug drum design located on the rear driver axle for use with a Phoenix soundcard…
At least the price of these K4’s have dropped enough that a guy can feel comfortable about tearing these things apart.
Chuck
Thank you Mr. Hanson! I have it apart now, but will I be able to reassemble? that’s another story, or it may require another post. My memory isn’t what it used to be, so I took several photos, maybe they will help.
PS: For anybody else reading this, there are two brackets that attach to the bottom, front of the cab, each side, which are attached to the frame with two screws which need to be removed. Then the entire shell including cab lifts off.
Thanks again.
George
George Perry, I forgot all about those 2 cab-to-frame brackets!!
My postwar K4 had a problem where it would run smoother going backwards than going forward. It ended up being that the center driver w/ the gearbox was installed wrong. The input shaft coming from the motor was rubbing on the frame so the driver was removed and flipped 180 deg. and the motor leads were swapped. Also had to change the motor out as the original had a out of round armature. When I talked to Cliff at Accucraft about the gearbox installed incorrectly he wasn’t really suprised.
I’d much rather work on a USAT Hudson!!
Chuck is right about the chuff drum. One came through with only 3 contacts. I tried and tried to get the 4th one in the right place and finally gave up. Accucraft sent me a set of rear drivers which had all 4 contacts. No matter what I did the chuffs would miss and skip at medium to high (scale) speed. I reversed the factory setting on the Phoenix card and it sounds better. I have to clean the strips constantly. On another one I abandoned the chuff drum and put a reed switch and magnets on the rear drive wheel. A better design would have been to put cam lobes on the rear drivers in place of the contacts and let them ‘make’ the chuff contacts, just MHO. Nick Jr
I greased the heck out of my chuff “drum”, I think you need to maintain this due to mechanical wear. I used moly grease since it’s real slippery and tends to “plate” the metal. You can get to the drum from underneath.
I finished my web site on the K4 (for now), and have a section on disassembly, my electrical conversion to DCC, and also a section on tips, notably the front truck which can use some tweaking for better operation.
The main section is at : http://www.elmassian.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=202&Itemid=243
Click on the sub menus on the left side to go to the 3 sections mentioned above.
Regards, Greg