Swapping Tenders for a Ten-Wheeler?

[Maletrain]

As many of you have noted, the "medium USRA" tender that comes standard on the 4-6-0 seems too large.  I have one of the "short USRA" tenders that I want to use, instead.  My 4-6-0 is DCC, so I am wondering how much work is involved with swapping the tenders.  Can I simply move the decoder from one to the other without rewiring?  Does it even fit the smaller tender?

[TJ]

sounds like a topic which skipgear  could possibly answer.

TJ

[gatrhumpy]

As many of you have noted, the "medium USRA" tender that comes standard on the 4-6-0 seems too large.  I have one of the "short USRA" tenders that I want to use, instead.  My 4-6-0 is DCC, so I am wondering how much work is involved with swapping the tenders.  Can I simply move the decoder from one to the other without rewiring?  Does it even fit the smaller tender?

If you get a DCC ready Spectrum Short tender, then it's a direct swap. Just take out the screws to the rear truck and the two smaller ones in the front, take off the shell, unplug the DCC plug harness from the locomotive, take off the tender drawbar, and then swap out for the new short tender.

[spookshow]

It's not quite as simple as that. The 4-6-0 tender does not have a wiring harness/plug that connects the engine wires to the decoder in the tender. Rather, the engine wires are soldered directly to the decoder board -



What you have to do is clip the wires off of the decoder and then either hook them up to a plug and connect said plug to the pins in the new tender, or solder the wires directly to the pins. Then, if you still want DCC you have to wire a decoder to the PC board in the new tender (there are numbered contacts on the PC board where you solder the decoder wires).

Cheers,
-Mark