FP 7 I already made the shell a few months ago. I took a B unit and spliced the front end of an A Unit to match the drawings in Model Railroader. The only thing I had to add was a small shim below the cab of the A unit to make it line up with the height of the B. Now for the chassis, I cut them as outlined above and got a good fitting set up. It ran well, but the joint was giving way. The next step is to make a pattern and cast a new chassis, or even machine one that looks like the plate chassis used in most Brass engines. You could use 1/8 brass plate, punch a few holes in it and insolate the gear tower with a ring shim Then you could pack some lead around the set up. Not all chassis are split vertically. I know this sounds odd, but you could take the dummy chassis of the B unit, cut and lengthen that and use it for the A Unit, thin out the inside of a B shell so it fits over the powered A chassis and you got a working unit in reverse. It would save a lot of trouble and might be a easy fix. Thinning the B shells is not that hard, I took two of them for my SP A-B-B Stock Car Hauler and had them ready in a few minutes... and if my A unit were a dummy I would have more power than I would ever need. Something to muse over. Cheers Joe MTL
Here is a scan of my FP-7 cobble together job, you can see by the N scale model below you have to move some windows around as well.
Looks good Joe I actually took 2 A unit shells, and my goof-up was cutting the "front" in the wrong spot, this will be remedied in my second attempt at a shell. I basically sliced halfway through the Dynamic brake plate on one shell and the front edge of the cooling fan plate on the front piece (There's where I cut too close to the upper rib) This is solely a test shell (The chassis has less margin for error) I think I have a way to get the shaft out of the worm. Joe, any way I can just get a shaftless worm from MTL if this "theory" screws up my existing one?
Hmmmm... A shaftless worm you say??? I need one of thoose.. What is the dimencions?? As i may have mentioned before i need it for my steam loco project
