Flywheel for FT

[austrian]

I am interested into buying Bachmann FT locos. From the parts diagram I learned that the FTs are not fitted with a flywheel. I have Bachmann F7 locos that are fitted and run fine. Would it be difficult to fit the FT with a flywheel? Or can I just plug in a motor with flywheel from F7?
Or will it run fine as it is and flywheel will not have benefit?

[Len]

The chassis on the FT appears to be the same as the F7 with flywheel. The differences are the motor, motor mount, and drive shafts. It looks like you should be able to order the F7 parts and install them in the FT chassis. I don't own either loco, so can't say for sure if this is will work. But it looks like it should.

Len

[richardl]

This is just a guess. I do not have either loco. Have you tried looking at all the photos of the different drives in the Parts pages and oco Diagrams page?

Rich

[jbrock27]

I can attest to this much; a current FTA shell will fit a Bachmann Plus F7A chassis, after removing 2 of the plastic "channels" that work with screws to hold the shell to the chassis.  For this I cut out 2 diagonally opposite each other with a Dremel.  (The Bachmann Plus chassis uses 2 screws, the current (analog anyway) version of the FTA uses 4).  This cutting may not be necessary if using the 2 current version of the  FTAs and F7As use the same number of screws to hold the shell on.
I will also add this, the motor is bigger and chassis is heavier in the Plus version; the motor is smaller and IMHO chintzier (and of course, no flywheel, unlike the Plus) in the current FTA version and its chassis is also considerably lighter.
I believe that my good friend JerryHO had the same question about fitting on flywheels and using the current chassis; not sure if he ever got to the answer.  The question of course, is whether there is clearance for a flywheel in the current chassis.
I am actually in the process of having removed the caps and other junk from the current, smaller, FTA motor and re-soldering the truck wires back to the motor.

PS-I also have to use some white glue to glue the windshield back to the shell of the FTA.  The original glue must have dried out bc the windshield has fallen out.

[Jerrys HO]

Jim has a great memory! Here's a couple of pic's. No I have not swapped anything as they are smooth runners like they are for now.
side by side

latest version with DCC

Plus version with flywheels


Hope this helps
Jerry

[RAM]

Are all the FTs that way, or just the ones that come in the train sets?

[jbrock27]

Thank you Jerry!

Are all the FTs that way, or just the ones that come in the train sets?

Which "way" Ram?

I can say this, the FTA I have is not from a train set, it was a stand alone, hobby shop purchase.  The motor is a little different that the one in Jerry's pics.  Instead of black plastic at the end of the housing, it has a clear plastic.  Definitely a lightweight motor as well.

[RAM]

I don't know why they don't put flywheels in them.  After all that is what most people want, and it is only a few bucks more.

[jbrock27]

I don't know why either and I agree with you!

[austrian]

I forgot that of lots of Bachmann models there are older and newer variants - I must be more precise with my questions in future.
What I am interested into is the latest incarnation, DCC fitted in the blue boxes. Bachmann produced these without flywheels probably as cost cutting measure with the thinking that the decoder provides "electric momentum". But is this sufficient? All the Bachmann locos I have are sound fitted with decoders providing momentum but still have flywheels. So the question is are flywheels still usefull for smoother running or just put into locos because in the pre digital we learned that flywheels are good and therefore still demand them despite being obsolete.

Thomas

[jbrock27]

My analog FTA, discussed above, came in a modern, blue box.  And I would not term flywheels as "obsolete".