Fed up with the poor performance on my Lima locos, I embarked on a plan to rid them all of their awful pancake motors. Already I had fitted extra pick-ups and this had made a considerable improvement. Enough so that I may yet leave my bubblecar and xGWR railcar. But for my ED I wanted to go for drive on all axles. My first thought was to use a Heljan Clayton chassis if I could get hold of a reject one. However, after a good look at mine, I decided that it would be best to use something more substantial. Now the Lima bogies have an incorrect wheelbase, it should be 35mm, but it measures up the same as my loco's with supposedly 34mm wheelbase. Although I havn't measured it, I presumed the Lima one is wrong. Next thing to look at was the wheel size. The EDs should be 3'4"or 13.3mm. Now the Clayton was pretty close at 3'3??", but as I had decided not to use this I had a look around at other 8'6" bogies. Class 24 and 25 were way too big at 3'9" but the class 20 were only 1mm too big at 3'7" with the added advantage that the footplate would be ideal for locating the extension bars. After posting elsewhere on RMweb for advice on how to go about the job, I will only be extending one end. A chassis was purchased on ebay, suitable brass tube and strip was obtained and now with two days to myself, I made a start.

The basic chassis. Not actually the one I purchased for the job, but from my 20, with the new one going back into it. Reason for this is, the new one takes a 21 pin decoder and is ready to take sound if I ever go for it.

Stripped down ready for surgery.

Too late for second thoughts now. As suggested by another member, I have made the cut at the bonnet end.

I know that many score to help the epoxy to get a better grip, I prefer, if there is enough meat on it, to drill some blind holes so it can get a purchase.

Extansion bar cut to length and drill through on two sides to help the epoxy. These are 72mm long. 20mm at each end for gluing and 32mm for extension itself. Plus an allowance for the thickness of the saw cut.

Extensions now fixed in place. I used a super rapid Araldite for this, about 90 seconds working time. This is now sat over a radiator and will be left for a few hours before fixing the other piece to it. The other blind holes that can be seen are so I can fit some brass plate once the pieces are together and cured. A longer driving shaft is needed and for that I have contacted Bachmann and they will supply one for ??1 plus an SAE. It probably won't be the right length, but will be easier to extend than the very short ones on the 20.

More reports as I get on with the job.