GE-U36 Wiring

[Jeff A]

With a renewed interest in model railroading, I have been having much fun rebuilding (or trying to) diesel locomotives. My current project involves two GE-U36 engines (Santa Fe #350, "pancake" motor), one marked Bachmann Hong Kong and one marked Bachmann China. The Hong Kong version uses a front truck pickup, with rear truck drive without pickup (only two motor terminals, connected via a top "bus" to the front pickup). The China version uses the same front truck pickup, but the rear drive truck also has pickups (four motor terminals). I purchased a new truck/motor assembly from Bachmann, and upon inspection have noted that it too has both drive and pickup functions (four motor terminals).
Could anyone perhaps clarify these two configurations or offer advice on upgrading the apparently older "front pickup only" version to the newer front/back pickup configuration.
I have searched for some kind of wiring diagram without success. Thus, any information would be greatly appreciated.
(I tried to post two small photos of the different configurations, but this messaging system reports "upload folder full...contact administrator" which I will attempt to do.)
Jeff Anderson
West Des Moines, IA

[jbrock27]

What is done is done and I am not posting this to discourage you on this project, bc god bless you for the attempt and admire you effort to make improvements, but, I would not have spent the time or money to try to upgrade this old a locomotive.  Rather, I would have put the money toward a newer locomotive that already had all wheels with power pick up, driving the motor.  I say this for your future consideration but wish you best of luck with your project.  Any learning experience, is one worth while.

[richg]

Common knowledge that you need a photo hosting site like Photo Bucket or Flickr for posting photos.

Get an account, figure out what albums you want at the site. You can end up forgetting where the photos are after a while when you up load a lot.

http://photobucket.com/

If all else fails, follow the instructions at the site. lol
Use the bottom link, labelled, IMG. Copy and paste it into a forum message. Don't move or remove the photo from the site or the photo in the forum message will go away.

You probably really like the loco for some reason so have fun.

Rich

[jward]

rather than even trying to fix a pancake motor u36b, you'd be better off using a b23-7 chassis under the u36b body. even if you are able to get the pancake motor running again, it will still be a poor performer. at least with the b23-7 you'd have a good running drive under the u36b body.

[richg]

If you do a suggestion conversion, up load the photos here, I might give someone an idea for a shell or frame conversion.
I have got a pancake motor to run using a Digitrx DZ125 decoder and it was fairly good but just an experiment. It was a Plymouth 0-6-0. Probably a diesel with pancake might not run as well, even on straight DC.

Rich

[Jeff A]

Here is a link to the two GE-U36 versions I have encountered.
http://www.gsitconsult.com/images/geu36.pdf

I really wish to keep both units as original as possible, and have had no problems getting the so-called "pancake" motor in other locomotives to run quite smoothly and properly.
My goal here is to learn as much as possible about the Bachmann "engineering" of these two versions.

As I said in the original post, this motor is still readily available from Bachmann, but only in the dual drive/pickup configuration (as in the lower photo in the above link).