Lima???!!! well, why not?

I recently got tempted (perhaps not quite the right description?) by a Lima Class 73 Electro-Diesel 73101 "Brighton Evening Argus" loco. OK, so maybe not one of my better ideas, but after all, when Hornby bought out Lima, all they did with most of the Lima range including the Class 73 was to 'tidivate' them up a bit, substitute the "Hornby" brand for "Lima", and continue to sell them, in fact there are presently one or two of this version of the model new on Ebay even now. I didn't fancy forking out £100 for a new one, especially as I'm more interested in what I can do to improve on the existing, so I bought a "Low mileage, one owner" one from "Rails" in Sheffield. First thing I noticed was the cream colour on the side panels bore little resemblance to the cream colour of Hornby Pullman coaches, so that meant out with the masking tape and airbrush, white primer then Humbrol Pullman cream, a much better match for the coaches, as you'd expect since Hornby own Humbrol anyway. I then carefully cut away all the moulded on 'handrails', drilling the body to accept new wire ones, which I'll fit later as I reassemble the body bits,- not yet decided if I want to fit flush glazing, and some touching up of the brown body colour will be needed as the new handrails won't quite cover up the yellow of the body moulding showing in places. I have a Hornby 'green diesel' version of this loco already, to which I've added high intensity front and rear lights using LED's and optic fibre, so I intend doing the same to 73101 (I also have 3 Lima Class 33's which have had the LED/optic fibre treatment to the existing lights), and this loco will also be remotored as have my other Lima loco's, maybe also incorporating cab lighting. Don't know what other members think, but personally, I get a lot of enjoyment from 'updating' some of the older models.....sad aren't I? Anyway, photo's and further posts will follow as I make progress with this model, good, bad or indifferent!
Keith.

 

I used the first of my Lima class 33's as a test piece for my budding airbrush skills, especially as I'm no artist! I bought and studied George Dents excellent books on detailing and modifying loco's which helped me a lot in the initial stages, otherwise what eventually ended up as a quite acceptable first attempt could well have finshed up looking like it had been painted with a yard brush! The Lima motor in my class 73 seems quite good, certainly better than the ones in the 33's,- they seemed not to move until quite a bit of throttle was applied, then take off like a dragster. Nontheless, I shall still be remotoring it as I have the 33's, and together with a DCC decoder, should, if the 33's are anything to go by, be able to accelerate away much more like the real thing.
Keith.

 

Having received the replacement motor from Finland, I set about sorting it all out. With the body already having been removed for repainting the Lima 'cream'(?) it was time to separate the driving bogie from the chassis, easily done by removing the 2 screws under the bogie itself, easing away the bottom plate, and lifting the bogie assembly upwards and clear of the chassis, having first unclipped the pickup connection from the trailing bogie. Removal of the 2 screws securing the motor endplate to the casing allows the brushes, springs and commutator itself to be removed, leaving the 'magnet' (made from similar material to that used on 'fridge' door seals, a kind of magnetised rubber!) inside the chrome ring still within the motor casing. I actually used this 'Magnet' as a spacer, since it's easily cut with a sharp knife, or filed. The idea is to increase the internal diameter of the 'Magnet' until the replacement motor is a tight fit inside it. This needs to be done evenly all round to ensure the new motor fits centrally in the 'Magnet' and chrome ring so that the gear cog aligns perfectly with the original bogie drive gears. Picture shows everything ready to start the job.

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Having got rid of the unwanted 'gubbins', and slimmed down the 'Magnet' until the motor fitted inside it, this is what it looks like with new motor in place.

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After making sure that motor and gears meshed correctly and turned freely, the bogie was then re-united with the chassis, ready for a bit of wiring in the decoder and front/rear lighting, plus cab lights. Here's the chassis back together again and decoder (fixed with 'Blu-tack') in place and wiring begun.

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As I'd previously added front and rear lights to my Hornby Class 73, I decided to do likewise with this Lima one, so removing the 'cab interior' moulding was the first step. I've used 2mm 'Lighthouse' dual red/warm white LED's for this, since having flat sides makes them easy to glue under the front of these mouldings. I had already drilled out the 'headlamp' mouldings on the body, through the body fixing clips at both ends of the loco, gluing 4mm lengths of optic fibre in the holes in the body, so gluing the LED's in position so that each one shone directly into the end of the optic fibre just meant accurate lining up, and covering each LED completely except for the end to eliminate any stray light within the model. 'Blu-tack' came in handy for this job too, as you can see.

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Here's a view of the front end of the body, 2mm optic fibre fitted into the front lamp.

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Before fitting the 'cab interior' mouldings back into place, I tested again to ensure all was electrically ok. I led the 3 LED wires up the rear of the 'cab' moulding, again secured with 'Blu-tack', bending them over at right angles, (which cleared the motor housing at the front end) leaving them at a perfect position to solder on the connections from the decoder.

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With the mouldings in place and leads connected, testing followed, then directional cab lighting was added before heat shrink sleeving was applied and the body (now repainted in the appropriate cream colour) and chassis re-united. Here's a pic of the repainted body before I added wire handrails.

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And now after handrails were added. As a consequence of repainting the body sides, the Tampa printed nameplates, which weren't great anyway, were sanded and painted over, new etched plates from Fox Transfers being fitted, which look much better and are at least, three dimensional!

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After some experimenting with altering CV's in the decoder, especially in terms of limiting top speed (remembering the new motor is optimally only 5.9 volts), starting voltage and acceleration/deceleration, (CV's 2 to 5), it's now a considerably more controllable locomotive that I'm happy to have on my layout. Finally, here's a pic of it on the track with a few 'Pullmans' attached. Just needs weathering now!
Keith.

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