Williams K4 upgrades?

If you really want to go nutz, you can chop the nose down to a more scale like length!

I cut about 1/8" out between the cylinder and drivers and then later another 1/8" off the nose and out of the boiler behind the smoke box.  Looks much better even though it is still too long lol. Don't think I would cut up a nice one though.  I have three so not such a big deal.  The flanges are huge on those also.

Williams did make nice Brass steamers.  You might also want to get rid of the Seuth and replace with an MTH protosmoke unit and Gunrunner John's super chuffer board.  Need to find me an E6 to go with the rest.

Nice work, Dennis. 

If you can find a Williams loco for short money, they are a good value. 

My Williams K4 is now in the expert hands of Gunrunnerjohn, who is converting it from stock conventional to PS3 and an MTH fan-driven smoke unit. I really like the Williams brass steamers too, and this will be the 3rd one that Gunrunnerjohn has converted for me in the last 6 months. 

Magicland, I hope you have better luck with FedEx than I did. They damaged my Crown Edition GS4 and refused to make good on it. It was obvious that they dropped something very heavy on it, but somehow that wasn't their fault. I'll never ship via FedEx again. 

John

Send the stuff USPS and put a piece of 1/4" plywood on the sides.  I think that will be my new shipping standard for anything that is fragile like brass locomotive.

One issue you'll run into with the Williams K4 is the limited space for the tether connector in the locomotive.  I have to ditch the standard connector board and use an in-line connector secured in place with JB-Weld and move all the wires to it.  Fortunately, there is a matching 10-pin connector available that will fit, it's just a wiring job to move all the wires from the old connector to this one.  Obviously, these guys hadn't seen DCS upgrades when they build these.

Would it be possible to adapt the mth tetherless drawbar, or would that be a major project by its self?

Dennis Holler posted:

  Need to find me an E6 to go with the rest.

You mean like this?

Item # 6-28005, circa 1999, made in Korea. Got this in un-run condition for $200.00.

Looks, runs great and is a real race horse; very quick, like an E6 should. 

Mark in Oregon

Magicland,

    AlexM upgraded my friends Williams J 611. He used the GRJ Super Cuffer Boards and ERR. Runs and sounds great. Look him up on the forum and send him a email.

JohnB 

Strummer posted:

Dennis Holler posted:

  Need to find me an E6 to go with the rest.

You mean like this?

Item # 6-28005, circa 1999, made in Korea. Got this in un-run condition for $200.00.

Looks, runs great and is a real race horse; very quick, like an E6 should. 

Mark in Oregon

 

Mark, I was lucky  last year and scored an 6-11224 Lionel E6. This was right after Lionel announced the most recent E6 so I think a few people were selling this version to buy the newest one, but I like this one a lot, it even has whistle smoke!  I think otherwise, it is the same exact castings as yours.

 I'd like to also get a Williams or other Brass one, but there seem to be 10 times the Williams K4's listed for every E6 lol

Dennis Holler posted:

Would it be possible to adapt the mth tetherless drawbar, or would that be a major project by its self?

That would be a significant undertaking, but obviously anything "can" be done.  I'm not sure even where I'd begin.  You have to do a lot of mechanical chopping, and I don't know there's enough room to actually get it done.

BlueComet400 posted:

Nice work, Dennis. 

If you can find a Williams loco for short money, they are a good value. 

My Williams K4 is now in the expert hands of Gunrunnerjohn, who is converting it from stock conventional to PS3 and an MTH fan-driven smoke unit. I really like the Williams brass steamers too, and this will be the 3rd one that Gunrunnerjohn has converted for me in the last 6 months. 

Magicland, I hope you have better luck with FedEx than I did. They damaged my Crown Edition GS4 and refused to make good on it. It was obvious that they dropped something very heavy on it, but somehow that wasn't their fault. I'll never ship via FedEx again. 

 

John

Wish I had another shipping option than FedEx, it was either that or local pickup, and while I wouldn't mind a nice road trip to California, it would be cost prohibitive. Engine was supposed to be here today, but it's just made it to western PA. FedEx is still saying delivery on the 20th (only 2 weeks from when it shipped), as they probably need a nice nap and then to hand if off to the USPS for another day or two of delays. 

Glad to hear an MTH fan-driven smoke unit will fit, now I'll just have to see if I can track one down. 

Magicland posted:

Glad to hear an MTH fan-driven smoke unit will fit, now I'll just have to see if I can track one down. 

Here's the MTH smoke unit in the Williams K4.  I JB-Weld a spring on the bottom to keep it pressed against the top, and I solder a brass extension tube on the nipple of the smoke unit to direct the smoke out.  This one is actually for a different locomotive, I'd probably cut it down a bit for the K4.

The spring and the screw-out extension allows me to remove the smoke unit for service.

"especially after seeing the 50's era computer sized reversing "board" in the tender in another post on here" 

These locos were made in the late 80's - early 90's, so there's nothing "50's" about the electronics; in fact, consumer "electronics" barely existed in the 1950's. 

But big? Oh, yeah.

Samhongsa (Williams and Weaver) brass locos are gems, only a little rough around the edges. 

Magicland,

     Here is a video of the Williams J that AlexM upgraded for my friend Doug, again Doug was quite pleased with the upgrade.

JohnB

Okay, I'm a bit confused. Opened up the engine today, and it looks like the center 2 pins where the tether connects are BOTH connected to the pickups for the center rail. Where the heck is the common? I don't see any wires running to either of the tender trucks. Does the tender base ground to the outside rails somehow? Do I just connect the AC common terminal on the ERR board to the tender base? And is the smoke unit and headlight DC? It looks like they connect to the motor leads, which should be DC. If I'm not mistaken, aren't the MTH smoke units AC? Just wondering, in case I decide to replace the Seuthe unit with one. Also going to be a lot of fun figuring out how to mount the MTH 10 pin tether connector board to the engine...

I'm going to go through this same thing with the tether, but looks like there is room down there.  I'll fabricate a brass bracket to hide/mount the green board.  I suspect GRJ has long since worked through this scenario on upgrades he's already done.

Not sure what you are meaning with the wiring, usually for any three rail the center rail collectors are all connected together (assuming there are more than one) and the wheels are all ground so to speak to the outer rails. So yes, unless something were changed, the tender base should be grounded to the outside rails naturally.  You could add third rail collectors to the tender to improve operation, but that mainly assures you don't loose power over switches and such. Do a search for tether and there are some older threads and pictures showing various installations and even some part numbers...  GRJ has covered most of this, although, we'll still have some detail questions along the way.

One thing I would like to figure out is adding lighted markers to the boiler and pilot.  I know both Lionel and MTH have had those features and we may be able to get those as spare parts to add, but I think there used to also be another supplier that offered some version of lighted markers and so I am wondering if anyone has used any of those sources to upgrade and add lighted markers with the ERR upgrades.  Again, this was probably covered in a thread somewhere lol.

John, Did you ever find a solution to adding whistle smoke, rather how to control it?  I think there is room for that feature in the Williams K4.

Dennis Holler posted:

I'm going to go through this same thing with the tether, but looks like there is room down there.  I'll fabricate a brass bracket to hide/mount the green board.  I suspect GRJ has long since worked through this scenario on upgrades he's already done.

Not sure what you are meaning with the wiring, usually for any three rail the center rail collectors are all connected together (assuming there are more than one) and the wheels are all ground so to speak to the outer rails. So yes, unless something were changed, the tender base should be grounded to the outside rails naturally.  You could add third rail collectors to the tender to improve operation, but that mainly assures you don't loose power over switches and such. Do a search for tether and there are some older threads and pictures showing various installations and even some part numbers...  GRJ has covered most of this, although, we'll still have some detail questions along the way.

One thing I would like to figure out is adding lighted markers to the boiler and pilot.  I know both Lionel and MTH have had those features and we may be able to get those as spare parts to add, but I think there used to also be another supplier that offered some version of lighted markers and so I am wondering if anyone has used any of those sources to upgrade and add lighted markers with the ERR upgrades.  Again, this was probably covered in a thread somewhere lol.

On the MTH 4 pin tether engines, 2 of the pins are for DC (+, -), while the other 2 pins are for AC, hot and common. On this engine, the 2 center pins are both AC hot, there's no common. If I connect the AC common from the ERR board to the tender base instead of the tether, as long as it connects to the outside rails electrically, it should work, just wasn't sure if it did, as there's no visible connectors or wires. 

As for the tether board, the board itself is thicker than the original, and it's sandwiched between the frame and the cab. I think one or the other will need to modified to accommodate it. If it's placed in the same orientation as the original, the connector sits too high for the hole at the back of the cab (and since the traces are on the opposite side as the original, the wire connections would be on the bottom). It's going to be "interesting", to say the least. At the moment I may just shrink wrap the original wires to make a proper "tether", and stick the original board back in there, especially if the smoke unit and light are running off of DC. 

Any tips on how the front of the boiler comes off? I can't see any visible indications (screw, slot, whatever), and I don't want to just start prying on things hoping to get if off and breaking off detail in the process. 

There is a screw up from the bottom through the cylinders, remove the front truck to see it then the two screws under the cab and it should come off.  Yes, I know it is tight, the 10 pin does not slide in where the 4 pin was,  so I'll mod mine somehow. It's close though so I think with a little work it can be made to fit.,  I'm thinking about trying to make mine have a removable cab shell so I can detail the cab interior, but not sure I am good enough to make a clean job of it.

If you mean boiler front, I'm not sure if it is just friction, glued or lightly soldered, but it will pop out.  Might be easier once you get the boiler off the frame and you can poke from the inside.  Just be gentle, that brass is thin and you could do some real damage if your too heavy handed.  Once the boiler sections come unsoldered, it is fun to put it all back together.  I made a brass inner ring for mine and then used hose clamps around the outside and went at it with my propane torch.  Was able to do that without softening the next course or the detail parts.

I'm not sure on the original wires to the QSI reverse unit.  I could pop one of mine open for comparison tonight if you want though.  The first one of these I got had a dead revers so I put an American Flyer E unit and a rectifier in it and it works fine.  It was a temporary fix 5 years ago lol.