Buyer beware, A cautionary tale of possible not getting quite what you ordered, But maybe getting a better deal out of it. Any comments on this.... :)

[cypherman]

Hi all,

The reason I have posted this here is that these diesels must be at least 40 years old and probably deserve to be in the vintage section now.

Well I have been buying Lima diesels in BR green. Always liked them in green. Anyway I bought what was advertised as a Lima Br green class 37. Well I decided to upgrade it a bit by putting the later none motorized bogie with the extra pick-ups. It was cheaper to buy a complete chassis and none powered bogie. Bogie/chassis duly bought and delivered. When I took the body off I realized that the original chassis had been fairly heavily modified. When the chassis were compared I saw the difference between them.  I did not know that the Lima class 37 came with the buffers attached to the chassis and not the body. The model I bought had them as part of the body. On the old chassis they had been removed at both ends and one end was filed down, so the buffer bean detail was now gone. The other end had about 15 mm removed from the chassis end along with the buffers. I also found out that the mounting lugs on the new Lima chassis were much larger than the holes in the body. So they have been duly filed to fit. So I must assume the body is not a Lima one. But what is it. I am assuming again that it must be a Hornby one. Anyone have any ideas where the body has come from. I am quite happy with this diesel, Just a bit perplexed about its origin. Here are some pictures of it.

Edited May 6, 2022 by cypherman

[Steamport Southport]

Lima made the ones with them on the chassis. In real life they had the cowling around the buffers removed exposing the chassis. That's the reason why Lima never made early versions.

 

Scroll down here as it shows most of the ones LIma made.

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/66658/lima_l204735_class_37_37702_taff_merthyr_in_railfreight_coal_grey/stockdetail

 

Body is definitely an old Hornby one though. Went through loads of them as they were cheap as anything when I was a teenager. You can tell by the footstep beneath the cab doors and the nose grilles.

 

https://www.hattons.co.uk/36311/hornby_r751_class_37_37130_in_br_blue/stockdetail

 

 

 

Jason

[Halvarras]

And the cab windscreens - definitely Hornby.

 

However this looks a tidy job, I've certainly seen far worse - horns, nose corner handrails and lamp brackets added, Hornby's odd protruding marker lights tackled, neatly painted and decorated. Respect to whoever created this! 

 

The Hornby bodyshell's mesh radiator grilles are also correct for a WR Class 37. As a point of interest and OTTOMH I believe as 37244 this was the last 37 to run in green livery, repainted blue October 1976.

 

By coincidence I currently have such a Hornby-on-Lima conversion sitting on my own workbench awaiting painting up as 37183 in large logo blue livery (don't tell @Darius43, it's all his fault🤪!)

 

 

[andyman7]

Funnily enough I've got a couple of Triang/Hornby bodied Class 37 projects on the go. One used Lima motor and trailing bogies on a very heavily adapted original Triang underframe. It was done as a bit of fun to represent a very heavily weathered TOPS green class 37 based on an actual picture. The other one goes even further - Hornby (ex-Triang) body fitted with replacement etched windscreen surrounds, Bachmann nose ends on a Bachmann 8-pin chassis, but that's not finished yet.

 

[GoingUnderground]

You can tell later Rovex ones by the mouldings on the sides where the yellow paint on the nose ends, they added the mouldings to help locate the spray masks when they switched to Rail Blue with yellow nose. Early Rovex ones do not have the mask locating mouldings. The modified tooling was used to produce BR Green models but without the yellow nose. They never produced a Green one with the yellow nose.. I've painted the nose yellow on a Green one myself. It looks very good, especially as it started life as "fit for spares only" on ebay. As Pat Hammond says it is a pity that they never produced it in that paint scheme. 

 

You can probably tell if it is a Rovex bodyshell by the presence of a housing/boss for the brass insert on the underside of the roof into which the body securing screw went. I think it was shouldered to help locate the brass sleeve which was intended to stop you cracking the body or plastic chassis if you overtightened the body securing screw. Also the headcode panel at one end was part of the chassis and used to project through an opening in the nose. So if you look at the inside of the bodyshell round the headcode panel you might be able to spot where the previous owner has filled in the opening at the end furthest away from the boss in the roof for the body securing screw.

Edited June 29, 2022 by GoingUnderground

[Hroth]

On 06/05/2022 at 19:02, Steamport Southport said:

Lima made the ones with them on the chassis. In real life they had the cowling around the buffers removed exposing the chassis. That's the reason why Lima never made early versions.

 

Though they were happy enough to produce split-headcode EE Type 3s in plain green livery without yellow warning panels and chassis mounted buffers.

 

Lima L205222a

 

I got a working Lima L205222a from Hattons recently for £35 to transplant the body from the Lima chassis to R30041TTS as I've no need for a Colas liveried 37 with sound!  The only mod was to swap the central internal glazing mouldings as the lima ones have prongs to hold the lump of steel in place. Luckily they merely clip into place, with no glue.  When I get a round tuit I'll paint the buffer beams red and the lugs that hold the body in place on the Hornby chassis green to match the livery.

 

The Colas body is now on the Lima chassis. I may install a cheap DCC decoder to allow it to run with other "Modern Image" stock....  :-)

 

 

On 06/05/2022 at 18:21, cypherman said:

Well I have been buying Lima diesels in BR green. Always liked them in green.

 

Me too!  I always look to see if they have Lima style body clips (2 big at each end and a smaller one midships per side) and not the older (Triang)Hornby clips.  Other  (Triang)Hornby giveaways are the deep cab window mouldings and the deep large grills on the nose. The more modern Hornby Class 37s use the remotored Lima chassis and so are ripe for bodyswaps with the Lima body. 

 

Edited June 30, 2022 by Hroth