V60: Some progress

Now that the motor is glued in place, I test fit the chassis and ... what the heck? That's not right! 

Hmmm, looking good on this side...

BUT! ... not here. That gap between the buffer sill and the walkway is not supposed to be there. The motor assembly is too tall and doesn't fit inside the locomotive. I double-checked the instructions and verified that I did all the metal working exactly to plan. Hmmm ...

I added a dab of paint on top of the flywheel, put the chassis on, and we immediately see the problem: The clear plastic piece conducting light from the light bulb to the upper headlight is in the way. Then I remembered hearing about that specific problem a few years ago. For now I removed the light conductor from the chassis and everything fits properly.

After installing the NEM 652 plug and the decoder it was time for a short test run on the layout.


I'm very impressed with how quiet the locomotive runs now. There seems to be some occasional binding in the original gears when running very, very slowly in speed step 1. We'll see if I can track that one down. So far, so good.