Conversion of electrical pickup

[Bachmann_I10sa]

Has anyone ever converted a steam locomotive engine from driver-pickup to tender-pickup? Is it much of a pain in the neck? I think I know how to wire it up , but the problem I face is a long brass bolt that holds on the brush case over the motor, which allows for conduction to that brush.

The reason I want to do this is so I can have a solid metal primary drive axle, and be rid of this wretched Bachmann problem with irreplaceable plastic parts.

 

[Ray Marinaccio]

Insulating the screw as you show in the photo looks like the easiest way to me.
Another method, depending on how involved you want to get with the project, would be to insulate the driver bearings on the one side of the loco frame and put wipers from that side of the frame to the rims of the drivers on that side. Then adding pickup wipers on the tender wheels would give that much more electrical contact to the rails.

What drivers do you plan to use?
I used the original drivers on the one I rebuilt by boring holes in the centers smaller than the bearing surface on the driver. The drivers on the left side were drilled larger, a nylon bushing was pressed in and redrilled to the axle diameter. This allowed the drivers to ride on the original bearings and conduct current in the same manner as before.

 

[Bachmann_I10sa]

Hmmm.....your method may be the smarter way to go. Where did you get the nylon bushing that you needed?

If I were to do it as my diagram shows, then I would drill out the drivers as well as the driveaxle, and slide a steel axle through them....uh oh, wait. Ah, haha. I HAVE to insulate the drivers! I didn't think about that fact that a solid steel axle is going to short out the rails. Man, am I glad you mentioned what you did with that bushing. Looks like that is the way I am going to go. Thanks a bunch for the advice!

 

[Ray Marinaccio]

The bushings were from an old tape player. I was going to use an empty ink pen cartridge. another idea that I had was to machine one end of the axle to a smaller diameter, build that end back up with epoxy and machine it back down after it hardens to the original axle diameter. Then mount the drivers using epoxy or Loc-Tite to secure them and keep them in quarter. You need to be sure the epoxy you use does not have metal fillers in it.

 

[Bachmann_I10sa]

I'll have to check around the house for a dead tape player then. Thanks again for the help, Ray.