John
What tool did you use to cut the hole in the chassis?
Believe it or not, I used a Dremel with a fiber cutoff wheel. I marked a pattern for the hole, then rough-cut it with the Dremel and then finished it with a file. I have a nibbling tool for metal, but the chassis was too thick. I have the "industrial strength" Dremel 4000, it cut through the 16ga chassis steel like butter, I was suitably impressed!
I considered the truck replacement, but after looking at the options, this seemed like the easy route. I got the motor and truck for free, and since I had a leftover AC Commander that's likely to rot in my parts box, I figured I could use it.
For anyone contemplating this upgrade, after closely looking at the LCRU2 & RS 2.5 board set, if you separate them, they would fit in between the motors, so if you have an old GP-9 powered truck around, the upgrade can be very cheap.
FWIW, I took this up to the club layout with Atlas track, it has no problem pulling a dozen diecast cars or five passenger cars around the layout. The AC Commander also gives it excellent low speed performance, I was very impressed with how smoothly I could slowly run.
I've already done some lighting enhancements to the locomotive, it got a red MARS light, LED headlight, and I even lit the turbine inlet with flickering blue LED's. Now that it's clear that I'll be able to run this more, I'm going to add some cool lighting effects when the horn is blown, there are side light lenses that do nothing right now, that will change. Then I'll look into some passenger car lighting upgrades.
