Lionel NYC Dreyfus 6-28084 LEGACY Upgrade-video 8-23-20

I can't wait to see how this comes out Bruk!

Yes,I'm very interested in this one too!

Doug

I'll be following along closely as I have the same locomotive and a Legacy version would be really cool!

It could be a drop in conversion if the gear ratios of the Dreyfuss and the Legacy ESE are the same. Might not be given the Dreyfuss is Korean made with inch dimensions and the ESE is Chinese made with metric dimensions. The only thing it would affect though is Legacy speed matching.

Pete

I'm considering something that Jon Z. mentioned to me, trying to repurpose my Chuff-Generator to serve as a Legacy tach sensor.  The stock Legacy has 60 pulses/rev, if I modified the software to trigger on either edge of the stripes, I could get away with around 30 stripes on the flywheel for similar gear ratios.  To zero in on the exact gear ratio, I'd simply make a custom tach tape with the desired number of stripes to match the speed.

I have a vested interested in this project since this my Dreyfuss.  I have to say that Bruk did a fantastic job on my Lionel N & W Class A (6-28052) going from TMCC to Legacy (the hooter whistle from the Y6b is perfect for the Class A).  Witnessing what was possible with the Class A, I had to ask if he was up to converting my Dreyfuss and PRR T1.  This will be fun to follow.

-Brian

Norton posted:

It could be a drop in conversion if the gear ratios of the Dreyfuss and the Legacy ESE are the same. Might not be given the Dreyfuss is Korean made with inch dimensions and the ESE is Chinese made with metric dimensions. The only thing it would affect though is Legacy speed matching.

Pete

They do have the same gear ratio 16:1 on both locos.

Id say its almost a “drop in” but its not at the same time. The mounting points for boards and the smoke units between them do not match at all. 

I figured that but still not bad compared to the other engines you have done. I suspect the hardest part will be swapping out the tach reader.

Will be adding whistle steam too? If so that will be a challenge.

Pete

Actually, with the Pittman motor, it shouldn't be that hard, there is already a Legacy board and flywheel that should do the trick.  You may need a different dogbone shaft length.

Norton posted:

I figured that but still not bad compared to the other engines you have done. I suspect the hardest part will be swapping out the tach reader.

Will be adding whistle steam too? If so that will be a challenge.

Pete

Yes, whistle steam will be added. Two separate smoke units will be used. The DSMK will not fit in the shell. Custom made brass tubing for the funnel/exhaust might have to be made. Possibly 3d printed parts if it becomes extremely difficult.

The punch down list grows. I tip my hat to you Bruk. I am confident you will be able to pull this off.

Pete

What is going to be interesting besides all the work involved in making this engine something the world hasn't yet seen will be when the actual Legacy version of the Dreyfus comes out. I would dare to say that that will fall short to this project. Even if there are no bugs, no drips, no errors made on those, they will fall short. Of course, this is assuming that Lionel will make these at some point in the future. I know a few have speculated that they will make them, but would they be Legacy or VL was the point question asked. If they are to be VL, then every 2 years is what Ryan said VL locomotives are produced.

So, no matter what, this will be something unlike ever before. I may have to pick one of these up and get work done, lol. See what comes, eh?

gunrunnerjohn posted:

Actually, with the Pittman motor, it shouldn't be that hard, there is already a Legacy board and flywheel that should do the trick.  You may need a different dogbone shaft length.

John is spot on, installing the encoder board and new flywheel is not difficult.

Sometimes the new flywheel will offset to far forward of the motor causing the "dogbone" to bind or not fit between the flywheel and input shaft for the gear box. I can trim certain areas on the dog bone and couplings but most of the time the fitment is bad enough you would want to change out the dogbone.

BUT!  Instead of going through the trouble of trying to to figure out what size dogbone to replace it with a Lionel part, and fabricating one or even 3d printing one from scratch. I remove the coupling from the input shaft on the gear box side and trim the shaft down allowing more clearance for the dogbone to fit between the flywheel and gear box. (such as I do on the Class A conversions).

This is not a huge out of the way task during a conversion because I always strip the motor down to clean and lubricate it then I also strip the gear box down to remove old grease and apply fresh grease. so everything is already apart.

Another option is to remove the couplings and and use a U Joint like the Niagaras use. 9433 and 9434 Pittmans have a 4mm shaft diameter. 4 mm U joints are a couple of bucks on eBay. Worked on my Legacy Commodore Vanderbilt.

You can also easily change the length of a dog bone by cutting it in half and using a piece of brass tubing to hold the pieces together to what length you need.

Pete

Bruk, how are you able to get Legacy items on the after market?

romiller49 posted:

Bruk, how are you able to get Legacy items on the after market?

Lionel

Norton posted:

Another option is to remove the couplings and and use a U Joint like the Niagaras use. 9433 and 9434 Pittmans have a 4mm shaft diameter. 4 mm U joints are a couple of bucks on eBay. Worked on my Legacy Commodore Vanderbilt.

You can also easily change the length of a dog bone by cutting it in half and using a piece of brass tubing to hold the pieces together to what length you need.

Pete

I have thought about using those U-joints in other applications. Like moving the motor out of alignment with input shaft would be a great example. But past that I personally wouldn’t use it in this type of set up.  

I have used the Brass tubing before to extend or shorten dog bones. In many different models and scales. 

Bruk posted:

Norton posted:

Another option is to remove the couplings and and use a U Joint like the Niagaras use. 9433 and 9434 Pittmans have a 4mm shaft diameter. 4 mm U joints are a couple of bucks on eBay. Worked on my Legacy Commodore Vanderbilt.

You can also easily change the length of a dog bone by cutting it in half and using a piece of brass tubing to hold the pieces together to what length you need.

Pete

I have thought about using those U-joints in other applications. Like moving the motor out of alignment with input shaft would be a great example. But past that I personally wouldn’t use it in this type of set up.  

I have used the Brass tubing before to extend or shorten dog bones. In many different models and scales. 

That’s all I do Bruk, use brass tubing and telescope it to make a nice fit....pack the tube with 3M panel bonder and let her eat in 30 minutes....polish the tubing for a nice effect....😉.......Pat

Finally got my part order in and I’m going to jump right in!

Of course Ill start off removing all the old electronics. I’m going to keep the IR in place and re-use that later. I removed the motor from the frame and broke down the drive. When I was doing this I noticed that the coupler between the driveshaft/worm gear and dog bone was loose and slipping on the shaft. I pulled it off with ease by hand. As mentioned in the comments above this will not be big deal because I will have to shorten the shaft anyways to make the the dog bone fit properly with the new flywheel.

After taking the drive apart and removing the old grease, I disassembled the motor. I do this on every conversion I work on. I check the commutators and re-lube the wicking around the armature bushings. Then reassembled the motor.

I was going to use the “flywheel guard” but the stack up with the motor bracket and PCB was to much for the flywheel/encoder to properly fit on the output shaft. So I had to scrap that idea. After I sorted that out I figured out how much I needed to trim down the worm gear shaft to fit the dog bone into the coupling correctly. I only had to remove .100 of an inch which wasn’t a lot compared to other projects. Since its a soft steel I was able to cut it by hand then file it down fairly easily. I fitted the coupling then drilled a 1/16th hole through the shaft. I fitted a small brass tube through the hole with some superglue. We have all seen the similar issue and fix on the early EM-1s so I found this to be adequate.

After that I fitted the heat sink to the boiler bottom. I had to position it just right for the placement of the smoke units. I then laid out a hole using the old bracket and mounted it. I had to drill and tap a hole in the front of the boiler bottom and inserted a 2-56 screw to help hold the heat sink in place.

More to come.