FT Interchange With Athearn and Mantua

[cpdraw]

Hello, my name is Rich.  I've been in the hobby since 1960, mostly in HO with excursions into N and G.  Some of my stock is Bachmann, with all the ups and downs that implies. 

My HO modeling revolves around a small to medium size DC layout with a good size collection of cars, locos, and custom decorated shells for same.  I've got about 5 shells for every powered chassis and change shells to change operating schemes.  When I picked up a half dozen Bachmann DCC diesels over the last couple of years (GP 30's and FTs) I have been working to move Athearn and Mantua F-unit shells over to the Bachmann FT chassis.  Now that I have been put out to pasture (retired), I can report that it can be done.

An FT-A chassis will fit an Athearn or Mantua F-7A if the front coupler hole is enlarged horizontally by about 1/16-inch (0.0625) on each side.  The Athearn steam hoses on the rear need to be removed to clear the rear coupler box.  Mantua never bothered with plastic steam hoses, so for either conversion just thread the front coupler of the chassis through the hole and drop the rear of the shell on the chassis!  That's it.

The FT-B is a little more work for both the Mantua and Athearn shell.  I got rid of the cast steam hoses on the Athearn F7-B.  No hoses on the Mantua F-7B so its over to the FT-B chassis.  This cast metal beauty is about 1/8-inch (looks like 0.1100 using Mr. Micrometer) too long for the B-unit.  My plan is to wrap and tape up the chassis and file that mother down to the scribe marks.

So there you have it--my transition to newer chassis for 30 year old models and another step towards Digital Control!

I already have a half dozen older Bachmann GP-30 shells and a GP-40 that have been modified to run on Athearn chassis, but I doubt that I'll be going in that direction.

My next transplant will be my Bachmann RDG 2-8-0.  I'm leaning toward tender power from either an Athearn SW-7 or a Bachmann switcher (44 or 70 ton).  I'm even toying with a cast Varney/Bowser tender shell for more traction.

See you all later!

Rich

[jward]

while the f7 bodies on the ft chassis can be done, the wheelbase is off. better would be to use the bachmann f7 chassis for the conversion. you'd have to hardwire a decoder but that isn't hard to do, especially if you are advanced enough to make the modifications necessary to get the shells to fit the ft chassis.

[Jim Banner]

Right on Rich,

Some years ago, I bought half a dozen Tenshodo brass diesels in various states of disrepair.  Some were FT's, some were F-7/F-9 A's and one was an F-7/F-9 B unit.  Tenshodo ignored the differences in wheel bases and used the same chassis in both.  Either that, or these locomotives had seen some chassis swapping in their first 50 years of life.  The ones that ran were terrible - jerky and noisy.  The other ones didn't run at all and were missing various parts of the running gear.  In the end, I outfitted them all with Athearn F-7 chassis, the super power ones with the big lead weights.  Now they pull stumps.  It has occurred to me to upgrade the FT's once again to the Bachmann FT chassis although nobody has ever commented on the extra two feet of wheel base.

I outfitted some of these locomotives with MRC decoders when I first got into DCC.  The rest have Digitrax decoders.  What they really need is decoders with BEMF control to bring the 20 year old mechanisms up to today's standards of low speed performance.  Either that, or bite the bullet and upgrade all the chassis with appropriate Bachmann ones.

I enjoy fiddling with old units like these.  The ones today may have more detail, but these oldies predate my H0 layout which is firmly set in 1961.  Besides, it impresses the heck out of the Brass Monkeys when they realized how many brass locomotives I have.  I just don't bother telling them that all six together originally cost me less than $100.

Jim