To me, the pinnacle of the NYC’s hot rods is the J3 Super Hudson.....3rd Rail’s brass model has always eluded me, and when they do show up, skies the limit, ....I missed one at York the year before last, that I spent too much time him-hawing about, and that’s how it goes at York....so I started looking around at my parts stash, to try and figure out how to build one....obviously the clear choice to start with is a 6-28072 J3a......these are some of the best built Hudsons Lionel has ever produced, so I went with that model....so to get the “look” of the Super, we need a few things, ....a Worthington feedwater, the feed pipe, roller rods, and a Selkirk smoke box door.....I had a shell from a 5444 (28072) and a chassis from a Dreyfus (28084) That model has the same chassis as 28072, but has the coveted roller rod journals.....I took a chance with a Selkirk front by calling Ms. Midge and ordering the front from MTH off of the Mohawk they built with a Selkirk front....thankfully, it’s a darn near perfect fit, with only minimal trimming on the inside of the boiler casting for a nice snug fit...even the screw holes lined up...( lucky) ....next order of business was to add the Worthington and the piping...I had to erase the embedded “bumps” on the shell, smooth all that down, and apply a thin skim coat of filler to fill in the scratches....the only thing that got me gun shy was splitting the walk way that’s raised on the super to make room for the hot water pump....I got cold feet committing to that much grinding, cutting and fitting with all that detail potentially being destroyed....so, I left that be and I’m satisfied with it not being 100% accurate....got to know your limitations.....of course, my buddy Pete ( Norton ) supplied me with the 4 cam lobe, so she’s sports fan smoke, & 4 chuffs per rev,....the Super pictured in some of the build photos next to mine, belongs to another buddy Chris, and that’s a whole ‘nother build we’ll get into later.....that one was just a shell when it came to me...but we’ll get to that one....back to mine, to round out the build, I used a PT tender from the separate sale CC offerings, and renumbered everything appropriately....there’s still a little detail work to do here & there, but I’m satisfied so far...................Pat
Attachments
Images (18)
Original Post
