What do you do when you pick up a pair of Williams CNJ GP9s at auction for $60? Why, upgrade them, of course! Since each one is underpowered out of the box (though you don't get a box for $60) with only 1 motor per unit, rather than have 2 underpowered units, I decided to put both motors in one, and make the other a dummy. Some sort of command electronics will be added to the powered unit, but let's start with the dummy.
First thing to do is pull off those ridiculous dynamic brake blisters to make this a proper(ish) GP7. Why Williams put one on there in the first place is puzzling, since no CNJ units had them. We'll also need to address why they stuck the nose logos above the stripes. Maybe they didn't have any pictures of the prototypes, or maybe they just didn't care. Swapping the motor and geared truck between units is easy.
I decided the dummy unit would be 1532. That makes things easier, as it was one of the 2 units that went off the Newark Bay Bridge, and after a rebuild at EMD into a GP9M, it didn't have the head end equipment cabinets on the long nose, nor the steam generator stack on the short nose (I actually added one before realizing that it shouldn't be there, so it came back off). Since it's just going to be a dummy, I decided to stick with the molded fan shrouds and grab irons. On the powered unit, I replaced them with actual detail parts. This will save a lot of time with repainting, as all I'll need to do is the added detail parts and the spot on the stripes where the nose logos need to be, along with removing the unit numbers from under the windows and placing them on plates below across the vents.
I'll be adding prototypical marker lights, exhaust stacks, spark deflectors, bell, and cab number boards. All of these are 3D printed, except the boards which are styrene.
Here everything's been attached. On the rebuilt unit, the bell was placed on the long nose, as opposed to the original placement on the short noses of CNJ GP7 units. Next to it you can see the powered unit, which has already gotten electrocouplers and all of it's body detail. It'll be 1523.
Here's the shell, painted and decaled with detail attached. The horns have been moved to the roof, as God intended. Nose logos are now correctly over the stripes, rather than above them. Next it's time to work on adding some lighting. Rather than spending over $100 to add a lighting controller to a $30 engine, I'm just going to throw in a buck converter, some LEDs and switches. Won't be as convenient, but it'll work for what I need, and cost under $10.
I decided to mount the switches in the fuel tank, which is plastic and more easily modified. Holes were drilled to allow the wires up under the shell.
I mounted the switches from the outside, as there's a big block of lead in there which I didn't want to have to modify for extra space.
Plenty of room for the buck convertor...
All wired up, mounted with double-sided tape.
I decided to epoxy 5 mm warm white LEDs to the light/number boards. If they ever need replaced, I can cut them off. Tried gluing them with CA, but the LEDs kept coming off.
Added the sunshades above the cab windows once most of the major construction was done. They'll be backfilled underneath with some JB-Weld to give them more strength. At this point, everything's ready to be assembled and tested!
