WILLIAMS PF-45 Loco Question

[GTBob]

Recently bought an excellent condition Williams loco PF-45 Santa Fe cab #102 (used).  I'm guessing the 102 must be an earlied version of the current cab #115 presently offered by Williams.  

My question is:  Does anyone know if the 102 cab version came w/ a horn/bell??  Mine does not.  I'm thinking the previous owner removed it, but don't know for sure.  Obviously, I'm wondering if the "good deal" I thought I was getting was such a good deal at all ...

Also, would I be able to add the Williams horn/bell unit (#00245--??) to my 102 loco?

Any info would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks..

GTB

[phillyreading]

I would guess that the PF-45 didn't come with any sound unit in it, as there is very little space inside the cab of most diesel powered Williams engines. However look inside carefully for any thing that looks like a cut wire on the circuit board. If it had a B unit the sound unit should be inside there and not the powered unit.
FYI, I have a three GP-9's by Williams and the newer one has the True Blast 2 horn & bell inside the powered unit, the older GP-9 set of two has the whistle & bell(not T.B. 2) inside the second or unpowered GP-9.

Lee F.

[GTBob]

Lee, thanks for your input.  I should have opened up the loco in the first place(duhhh).  The reverse board is a older type.  The is no place to "plug" in drive motors or a horn/bell assy. etc., as there is  w/ the current reverse board used by Williams (Bachman).  All external wiring connections are soldered to the board.  Also, no snipped wires are present which leads me to believe there never was a horn in this loco.  However, the i/s of this loco is huge---there's plenty of room to install the horn/bell assy (probably two).

There is also a switch located on the fuel tank which permits you to lockout the reverse action of the loco.  The motion sequence is a bit weird---it goes forward-neutral-reverse-forward, skipping neutral between reverse & forward.

Am wondering if the current horn/bell assy (part # 00245) could be hooked up into this loco w/o changing to the newer reverse board. 

Any comments would be appreciated.  Thanks.


Bob

[phillyreading]

Bob,

To add the newer horn unit, the True Blast 2, all you have to do is supply power from the center rail pick-up and the outside rail pick-up or frame of the engine. Make sure you get power before the circuit board for the center rail, like straight from the roller assembly, or your horn unit may only work in one direction.
If you have room under the shell, the T.B.2 will usually work well.

Are you familier with parallel wiring? If so wire the horn unit in parallel with the center rail power. The frames on most engines if they are metal will give a good place for the negative wire to get power from.

In my opion True Blast 2 sounds better than most other horn systems. I even put a T.B. 2 into a Lionel diesel engine that had a simple horn sound.

Lee F.

[GTBob]

Lee,

Thanks very much for the info.  I kinda figured the TB2 would work--but, I needed the input of someone more experienced and knowledgeable than I before I tried the install.  Yes, I know parallel wiring and understand what you are saying.

Once again, thanks for your help.  Next step----buy a TB2 horn.

Regards,

Bob

[phillyreading]

Bob,

Glad I could help you. Sort of FYI info for you on what I did with some Williams engines.

I have bought differant versions of Williams SD-45's and they are basically the same plastic shell and metal body but with differant circuit boards installed. One SD-45 has no switch to shut-off the direction and has traction tires, another has a switch to shut-off the direction control but no traction tires. The other differances are not that easy to see at first, one has a plastic set of flangeless wheels for the third set of wheels while the older one has metal non-flanged wheels.
I have added extra wire connectors(plastic guick disconnects) and hooked up three SD-45's together with a Baldwin shark B unit with a True Blast 2 diesel horn in it. The B unit gets it's center rail power from the powered SD-45's and helps to add an extra return or common to the set of SD-45's. Had to drill some small holes in the plastic shells for the wires but I am not that worried about the value of my older Williams engines, as they run great and have what I want. Also I didn't pay a whole lot for my engines.

I have two sets of F-7 diesels, one is the Santa Fe and the other the Pennsylvania. I have taken out the circuit boards on my Santa Fe engines and put in 6 amp bridge rectifiers, lost direction control but gained about 10% speed. Had a problem with direction control in the circuit boards, that is why I did that.

Lee F.