Powering All Nation F3?

I  wouldn't use a Stanton, you might be very disappointed. I would seek out the original drive, these come up on Ebay, or at swap meets, they come up regularly. The P&D drive is another possibility, from P&D hobbies, or you could try  Jay  at right-O'-way, he does nice drives, and he will give you good advice and direction. They would be my possible choices.                cTr....(Choose the Right )

The P&D drive could be installed without any or much modification to the existing shell and truck mounts.    Also, you might be able to use the existing truck frames.    P&D also has a gorgeous lost wax cast trucks for EMD.     

Finding a "like new" original drive may take longer.    Athough All Nation units and parts do turn up at most O scale train shows at reasonble prices.

I was hoping the stantons would work...they seem so easy.  Are they underpowered or just not reliable?

I will look at P&D as well as talk to Jay.  I need to email Jay anyway for another project I want to re-motor anyway.

That'll be a fun project Andy!  FWIW I've had great success with Jay's drives.  They allow the use of HO-sized decoders leaving room for larger Tang Band speakers.     Here are my five "Jay's" conversions with brass P&D Blombergs in a consist on my shortline:

5 feet to the left of this view there's a 36" radius hidden 180 deg curve that they all pass through with no issues. 

These are lighter-duty drives and each loco will pull about 15 x lb cars on level track. Jay has heavy-duty versions also if you need to pull 100-car coal drags... 

Pete

Pete, mighty fine!

Dan Weinhold

Who is Jay?    Does he have a website?

Jim, see second post in the thread. I'm not sure it's OK to post supplier websites here.

Pete

@Pete M  Thanks Pete...that is what I am looking for...something I can use with HO decoders...will help offset the cost of the power units.  

I was originally going to sell this All Nation F3, but I love the look of it..and who can resist a good paint and motoring project?!  I really want another F3 A&B unit to go with this one.

I also have an All Nation NW-2 I might repower, but I may just put a NCE decoder in it and forego sound 

@Pete M  Which HO decoder did you use?  ESU? which version for the high efficiency motors? 

Hi Andy,

I now use the LS 5 DCC HO decoders for any coreless motor with under 1A stall current.  Either the NMRA 8-pin or the 21-pin version with a NixTrains Decoder Buddy (like below) depending on the space left after I cram in the largest possible Tang Band speaker! 

Pete