Using a Hornby Class 66 Motor bogie to re-motor a Hornby Ringfield Class 56 - and exploring the concept for future upgrades.

About

The motor in my Lima Class 60 has seized and is in need of replacement, I have seen all of the topics about using CD/DVD Drive motors but I'd rather have a motor rated for 12v.  Although, if the need ever arises to re-motor some of my other stock I may have to look further into this.  I decided however to complete my Hornby 56 first as I have just added lighting to this model and would like to get it 'finished' before moving on to something else.

I started comparing bogies with some of my other stock with motor bogies available and noticed that it is close enough to my Hornby Class 59.  While not an amazing motor, my Hornby 59 does run fairly smoothly at low speeds, something that cannot be said of Lima or Ringfield motors nowadays - even with a quality decoder.  I managed to source a Hornby Class 66 on eBay, I bought a 'non-runner' (which incidentally runs just fine, I suppose it was tested on DC as the decoder was set to only work on DCC).  The Hornby 66 cost me just £38 and although the body is not in a usable state, it did include a Zimo MX645 sound decoder with YouChoos Class 66 Sound.

Construction

To be honest, construction was much simpler that I had thought it would be, mostly because I had a donor chassis so I didn't have to build anything.

The Class 66 power bogie is held in with a clip on the top of the motor, both the Class 56 and 60 power bogies are held in place with a clip at the front and back of the bogie.  I will need to look into building a fixing into the Hornby body.  Possibly by cutting out the 66 motor fixing and building this into the model.

I will also need to dismantle the bogies so that I can fit the correct side frames to the new bogies.

This is the Class 66 Motor Bogie once removed from the old chassis, I have de-soldered the noise suppression capacitor.

Because I managed to find a donor loco for the motor bogie, it means I can cut the donor chassis down and retain the same motor mount.  When I get around to doing my Class 60, I'm not sure I'll have that luck so it will be more work.

Photos top left: The motor bogie with the mount and the original side frame.

Photos top right: The motor bogie sitting in the 56 chassis, I needed to open up the hole on both ends for it to fit.

Photo bottom: All put together, I secured the motor mount to the chassis using liquid poly, liquid poly did not work when attaching the side frames.

Now I need to get the side frames attached with Araldite, the photo does exaggerate the offset between axle-boxes & axles. 

And then all that's left to do is fit a sound decoder.

Conclusion

Cheaper than a new version of the 56 and it means I don't have to re-weather.  It also means that if I want to change the speaker for a larger & better version, I have plenty of space and more options to choose from!

If I was looking to buy a new Class 56, based on the current prices, I would buy a newer Hornby version.  But I'd rather do this work on an existing model than sell it and replace it.

I was going to post a video here to show off the lighting effects working with the sound, however, the Legomanbiffo sound project is on a LokSound 5.  There is no definition for this decoder in DecoderPro yet so I can't remap the functions as I don't have a LokProgrammer.  This means the lighting is all over the place - but, when I have remapped these functions, I will post a video in the comments.  For now:

The cab lights which are now working off of the LokSound, the rest of the functions are working off of a LokPilot FX which you can read about in my previous blog post.

Up next will either be sound fitting a Bachmann 170 using conductive couplings or a lighting upgrade on a Bachmann 158 soon to be repainted 159.  We'll see which gets done first!

Cheers