The exploded diagram might help:

http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/dwg/dwgs/H823-IS001.PDF

I didn't track the various part numbers you gave but that page has what to me looks like three different tender configurations, and I'm guessing that you have some of one and some of another. I *THINK* the diagram will tell you which ones go with which other ones.

Beware that the page that contains this is split in a rather confusing way. There are HO stuff, then it goes off into N, On30, etc - and then a different line of HO stuff. If you don't see what you want, keep looking!

Not sure what you've got already, but have you had a look at this page?

http://estore.bachmanntrains.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=66_68_210&sort=20a&page=2

Looks to me that you'd need a chassis with weight, the tender PCB (which is the DCC and sound board, although it might be missing a speaker), and one of the tender shells.

What have you gotten already?

First, I've got the exploded diagram, and yes, I've gone over it carefully.  More than once.  (For the Bach-man: A few more lines on the diagrams would help a LOT. It isn't very obvious how many parts are related to others.)  I've spent at least an hour fiddling around before posting.

I am attempting to kitbash this model into quite different locomotive. In particular, this locomotive has relatively modern piston valves, where as the target has slide valves. I am trying to disassemble the cylinders, and having not too much luck.  The boiler is off, and I've removed the brake cylinders at the rear of the frame - which exposes a screw that simply can't be seen otherwise!  I removed the four obvious screws on the bottom plate (00J01), allowing it to be swiveled away.  I loosened the little circuit board and this leaves the contacts and wiring in tact. With the pony truck and the bottom plate out of the way, I can see the "front plate" of the cylinder saddle (00T02). My problem is that I cannot see how to disengage the cylinders (00C01 and 00C02). It LOOKS like the front plate is being held in place by the cylinder castings, but I don't see how to dislodge the cylinders.  Perhaps they are just a very tight press fit, but it seems more like they're glued in place?  Or are they glued to a projection the lower front of the weight casting? There is a bit of a smear that looks suspiciously like it's a bit of slightly runaway ACC. I guess I could try to just pry then outward from the frame. What is the least damaging way to get the cylinders off of the frame?

As an aside, the air tanks (OOG01) appear to be glued onto (thick) tabs on the frame?

Finally, I've also been unable to get the weight castings apart and removed from the frame. I removed three screws, which is all I can see on the diagram. It still seems pretty much locked in place, as if there's a tab somewhere that has to be released. In fact, it kind of appears from looking at both the diagram and the locomotive that the front plate of the cylinder saddle is captive to the weight castings?  If so perhaps the problem above may be more tractable if I can get the motor/weight/gear assembly disengaged.

Advice?

They're little mechanical things! It is not so hard to bump the spring in just the right (wrong) way - and that goes for all of the couplers, from any of the usual sources.

I just took a closer look at the tender, and it might be easier than I had originally thought. The little circuit board with the LED on it has longer wires on it than I had initially thought, so if you remount it in the center of the tender, you can probably re-use the light casting and the stock light pipe. That requires creating some sort of hole in the weight for the screw to fit into, but that shouldn't be hard. The main difficulty with this plan is that I am fairly sure that the light casting is cemented to the tender shell with plastic cement, and not with some form of CA. At least, my CA debonder did not loosen any of the detail parts on the boiler, such as the bell. I would not bet on getting the light casting off all that easily. You might have to cut it off flush?

A light pipe is usually a clear styrene rod.  In this particular case, the one in the tender now goes straight up from the LED to into the backup light casting. If you making the tender deck taller, it would be a trivial matter to pull it out and substitute a longer one. If you're good at bending styrene, this might not be so hard, but most of us aren't so good at this type of thing.  Writing this now it occurs to me that perhaps the pipe doesn't need to be bent, it could be three pieces with properly cut angles - that would not be too hard, if it works.

Here's a (crude) cut-away photo of that tender.



The backup light is the surface-mount LED that you can see below the backup light.  There's a light pipe that runs directly up from the LED into the light casting.  Relocating the light would involve either a more sophisticated light pipe arrangement that probably has two bends. Alternatively you could simply remove the small circuit board with the LED entirely and replace it with a hard-wired LED, probably mounted directly in the (relocated) light. I'd say that the latter is probably the less difficult approach. That's what I'm going to do as the entire tender silhouette is wrong for my application (a very rare C&O E-5).

THANKS VERY MUCH.  That screw under the dome is NOT on the diagram!!! I knew that there had to be another screw or fastener some place, but from inspecting the PDF file it was definitely not obvious.  Now I know why!

It is certainly true that the removable top of the dome is shown, but the screw isn't. Well, maybe it is - perhaps that is the one, sitting by itself under the motor, in a completely different quadrant of the page.

OK, I've just spent an hour trying to get inside (and yes I've downloaded the diagram and read it, thoroughly), and I haven't figured it out. There must be a tab or tabs somewhere that need to be pried apart or something. I usually don't have trouble with steam locomotives, this is the first one that really has me stumped.

I have relatively little experience here, but it is my pretty clear impression that nearly all locos come set up for maximum sound level right out of the box (or bag, if you're using a separately purchased decoder). I nearly always have to turn them down, per advice above.

Your particular units may have been turned down somehow, of course.

But more likely they're set to full volume already, and if that is true you need more volume, it could get complicated pretty quickly. I haven't seen the inside of one of these, but an FA is one of the best chances to have space for another speaker, a different decoder, or both.  My impression is that ordinarily the SoundTraxx decoders aren't set up to drive two speakers, but that may be possible if they're wired properly. If your out-of-the-box decoder isn't capable of that, you have a couple of options.  One is to be sure that the speaker is enclosed, meaning that all of the sound goes out one direction. Some of the Bachmann units I've seen have enclosed speakers, and I think some others don't - you'll probably have to look. The enclosure can make a surprisingly big difference.  If you have an enclosed speaker, you may want to see how open the chassis is to letting the sound out. Again, I don't know this loco, but I have one steam loco that seems to have no means for the sound to escape the tender - although in this case it works just fine. Often the speaker in a diesel is in the fuel tank area facing down and is well vented, but other times it's just sitting inside the shell, and opening more ways for the sound to escape can help.

An extreme measure is to replace the sound decoder with a more powerful one. I use QSI Titan sound units when I get a loco without sound. They are set up to drive two speakers right out of the box. If you use one of these puppies to drive two enclosed speakers you will almost certainly be running to the programming track to turn down the volume!

I don't know how old yours are, but if they're reasonably recent (past ten years or so?) they should have what's called an NMRA 8-pin socket inside. A DC loco these days has a dummy plug in that socket, and it is a very simple matter to pull it out and plug in a DCC decoder. As long as you're just going for DCC, a "fleet" decoder is a small item that shouldn't be too difficult to place in the loco. I've done a couple diesels in that general way, and that works pretty well and is pretty easy. At least one of them was a mere 5 minutes after the shell was off. Of course, you still have to program the DCC, but that's true of pretty much any DCC decoder.

If you want sound, that could be a much more elaborate effort. Some of Bachmann's diesels often are pretty full, and finding space for a larger decoder (the sound decoders are probably 3x the size of the simpler DCC-only ones), a speaker, and some other wires can be something of a trick and might be a pretty fair undertaking, although there's no rocket science involved.

There's also a big difference in price: a regular decoder costs about $20 and if bought in quantity (as some clubs do) can be had for as little as $12-$15. Nearly all sound decoders run $80+ and usually that also doesn't include a speaker (another $10+).

You can certainly check voltage with an inexpensive voltmeter.

I tried many of the usual suspects first. I also did a Google search. I thought that perhaps some other folks might have some info that I didn't already have, but clearly it's impolite to ask.

I'm interested in picking up several of the big Vanderbilt tenders that Bachmann shipped with their C&O Heavy Mountain (J-2). Are there any retailers out there that have these? I know that some of the tenders - like the smaller 8-wheel Vanderbilt shipped with some H-4 2-6-6-2's - are in circulation (for example at thefavoritespot.com) but I haven't noticed the bigger 16VC's. I know Bachmann has them as spare parts, but I'd rather give some retailers first crack if they have what I'm seeking.

What ACTUAL size are the drivers and spacing on a USRA Light 2-10-2 model?  The prototypes are 57" and I'm considering building an unrelated model on top - but the B-1 prototypes used 63".