I finally got around to redoing the Intermountain Erie Lackawanna SD45-2's that I got a while back. I was happy to get the engines since they are really needed for the era I model but I was let down by what Intermountain did. The paint was pretty bad. It was applied in thick coats and the colors were wrong. I was amazed at the quality and detail of the shell once I stripped the engines. I repainted the engines and detailed them with BLMA parts. Lots of grab irons, MU hoses, Brake pipe hoses, cab sunshades, windshield wipers, cab doors, drop steps, MU receptacles, pilot layovers and diamond tread pattern sheet were used to detail these models. I did use bells from Sunrise. The standard EL horn was a Leslie S3L with the low profile manifold and rear facing bell. To create this horn I dissected Atlas horns and rebuilt the correct horn with the bells reversed and then mounted them above the Engineers windshield on the cab roof. I replaced the mechanisms with Kato SD40-2 mechanisms. I used the first run mechanisms. The Intermountain mechanisms were good but nowhere near as nice as the Kato ones. I used a Digitrax DZ125 decoder in both engines. Now the engines look pretty sharp and run beautifully. I need to do several more. Scott Lupia
Thanks guys. The Kato mechanism requires a little shave, mainly on the metal around the motor. The width of the frame is a bit thick around there. I just milled some off with a dremel moto-tool until the frame fit under the shell nice and snug. I also milled off the bumps on the each end of the frame halves that hold the kato shell on. The shell will hold on to the frame nicely. The Intermountain fuel tank also fits quite well onto the frame with minor modification. In my opinion, it is well worth the time and effort. Scott
Those look (as Phil Esposito always says) "ab-so-lute-ly" fantastic, that is one heck of a professional job you did, very impressive, my best, Jan
I agree with all of the above comments, Nice job, Scott. I want to doo the same to mine but I have a few questions. How did you deal with the parts that are glued on? I was discouraged when I saw that the windsheilds were glued in. What did you use to strip them? As always , a pleasure to see your work !!
Greg, the glued on parts aren't too bad to work with. I was able to pop out the windows using a toothpick. They did come out pretty easily. I removed the handrails using a dull x-acto knife. If you are careful, you won't damage them. I used Scalecoat 2 stripper which worked very well. The paint does come off easily. I had sliced off all the cast on grab iron detail prior to stripping. I stripped the engines and then noticed that the grab rails were back. That is how thick the paint is on from the factory. I couldn't believe the thickness of the paint. Scott
Thanks, Scott,I'll try the scalecoat stripper. Coincidentally, Our club set up for a show today and I set my NY 99/100 TOFC train in the yard with 3 of the 45-2s on the head end. I was going to put two and a Kato SD-45, but the colors were so off that it looked comical. I know you were discussing the color difference elsewhere so I'll take some pics and post them.
WOW. Very nice. The weathering really sets them off. I would love to see a shot of them with some scenery around them.
I'm working on my Conrail IM SD45-2 right now. Could someone give me a little more info on this EL horn extended manifold? I see that it sits low and extends out in front of the cab, but I was interested in some idea of how to create this item. Thanks. BTW, why did EL do this to these horns? [edit] Ans: A little research turns up George Elwood's EL website and this page about the horns. Question about why is answered.
Flash: I forget the part number of the horns I ordered from atlas but one of the horns is off the SD24. The other horn I ordered was a Leslie 3 chime, just like the SD24 horn, but the bells were reversed. The modification you need to do is to cut the large bell off at the manifold and reverse it. You can shave a little off the underside of the manifold to create a lower profile manifold but that is not entirely necessary. I use a small piece of styrene glued to the underside of the manifold and glued to the front of the cab. I also dab a little CA on the underside of the small bell which faces rearward as that will contact the cab roof. Those two spots of CA should hold the horn under normal handling. Of course, you may want to add that detail last as I did that first and I ended up fixing it about 3 times. The EL used two bell configurations. One was for horns mounted on the engineers side like the SD45 and the other was for horns mounted on the firemans side like on the U-33/36/34's. That is why I ordered two different horns from Atlas. I will have to dig through my box of stuff and see if I still have the part numbers scratched on a piece of paper. Scott
Scott: I am getting it now. I see about reversing the horn. Also, here is a good picture from RailPictures.net. CR 6658.
