Lima 00 gauge 94XX conversion

[AJFE 2488]

I have a Lima Class 94xx in GWR livery. These are no longer made by Lima so you can only get them second hand these days. Anyway, the chassis and motor on this model isn't very ideal as the motor fills the cab space and it runs slowly and noisily. Therefore I have made the decision to replace mine with a modern day 0 6 0 chassis and whilst Im doing that, give the loco a repaint and renumber it aswell. There is an article on the GWR modelling website which tells you how to fit a chassis from a bachmann 57xx into the 94xx however it is not easy to get hold of the chassis on it's own as they are no longer sold as spares and I don't fancy the idea of buying a 57xx, removing the chassis and leaving the body lying around. Luckily whilst having a look on ebay, I found a complete hornby 0 6 0 chassis being sold as spares for £22.50. This chassis is the current up to date version being used by hornby in their locomotives and is similar to the bachmann version so I have decided to purchase this and fit it into my 94xx. I will post pictures and describe how I fitted mine so that you guys can do the same if you fancy a go.

94xx side.jpg (89.34 KiB) Viewed 7469 times

This here is the 94xx in its new BR colours. It has been painted with Gamesworkshop's Chaos Black and given a coat of clear gloss paint as I did not like the matt look after the balck paint had dried. Also picks out the rivetting quite nicely aswell. Moulded hand rails on the cab have been picked out in silver paint, wire hand rails on the smoke box were given a clean up to get rid of the rust on them and I've have painted red circles on the cab sides to show its power and weight classification which was not featured on the model's original appearance.

94xx diagonal.jpg (88.97 KiB) Viewed 7468 times

I also decided to paint the 94xx's new running number on the smokebox door to represent a locomotive of the same class that was based at 84B Oxley Shed near wolverhampton. Which was where my Grange Class model was also based. The running number on the buffer beam will be removed as I don't think it was present in the BR Livery. The coubleing hook at the front was originally painted red which was definatley not prototypical in real life. This has now been painted black as a basecoat then silver afterwards. The Chimney Cap was repainted in Brass as the original coating was very patchy.

94xx cab right side.jpg (99.46 KiB) Viewed 7469 times

Now to show the problems with the original chassis and motor. As you can see in this picture, the motor completley fills the cab and would be very difficult to convert to dcc. The new chassis will free up the cab space and will allow me to have some crew members in there working. Might fit in a Red LED as the firebox light.

Body and Chassis seperate.jpg (104.33 KiB) Viewed 7467 times

Here is the body and chassis seperated. As you can see, the motor is very big and is placed over the rear wheels. In front of that, there is a very large weight, which isn't included in the picture. The new chassis will have the motor in the middle of the chassis thus freeing up the cab space and giving the loco a more evenly spread weight.

[AJFE 2488]

hornby chassis.jpg (76.18 KiB) Viewed 7446 times

This is the new hornby chassis which I recieved from ebay a while back. It looks a lot better than the lima chassis and has an even better motor aswell. Eventually, I will add a DCC socket to save me from hardwiring a decoder into the locomotive. An obvious difference between this chassis and the bachmann version is that this one doesn't have rods going length-ways along the chassis connecting the brakes whereas the bachmann one does have them. Either way it's good enough for me. However there is one slight problem with the hornby chassis.

chassis comparison.jpg (89.91 KiB) Viewed 7445 times

As you can see in this comparison view, the hornby chassis is noticably shorter than the Lima chassis. This will require a lot of plasticcard to build up underneath the framework so that the new chassis will fit in snugger than a bug in a rug. The lima chassis was originally fixed in place by a screw at the front which went into the smoke box and a lip at the back which fitted into a hole in the rear buffer beam. Because of the shorter length of the hornby chassis, the rear buffer beam hole will be filled in with some plastic card and a new ledge built up behind it so that I can use the lip on the new chassis, and I will use a lot of plasticcard at the front, to build up a block under the framework so that I can utilize the hole normally used for fixing the coupler to the chassis to screw the chassis to the body. There are two lugs at thhe front of the chassis which are normally used to clip the chassis to the body, these will have to be removed so that the chassis can be fitted and removed from the body without possibly breaking of the plasticard. I will also have to use some plasticard to create a cab floor since you can now see through to the bottom with the new chassis fitted.

hornby chassis with frames.jpg (103.87 KiB) Viewed 7442 times

Here I have placed the frame part of the body onto the new chassis. The motor fits perfectly in the hole which is normally occupied by the weight and required no modification at all to the frames which is quite an advantage over the bachmann chassis. However there is one small part that would have to be chopped away in order to line the frames up with the wheels.

frames top view.jpg (107.45 KiB) Viewed 7442 times

There is a piece of plastic which represents a pipe linking the pannier tanks and is in the way of the motor. This was cut away with plastic clippers and filed down. Now the body fits the chassis properly although it needs a bit of work before it can be fixed together.

[GeraldH]

This promises to be an interesting topic. I have often wondered about putting the Hornby standard 0-6-0 chassis under one of these. The Bachmann chassis is better, but harder to find separately and more expensive. The Hornby 0-6-0 chassis can take some tweaking to get it to run properly though: beware of the brake shoes rubbing on the wheels which can have rather floppy bearings

[AJFE 2488]

The chassis that I got from ebay seems to be working fine enough, had it going up and down some double track lengths to break it in and so far no problems. Hopefully it should perform just as fine when DCC gets installed into it.

Anway as I have mentioned before, you can easily see down to the tracks without a motor filling up the cab, however this creates another problem. Because the hornby chassis is shorter than the lima chassis, there is nothing at the back to prob up the cab so a cab floor is neccessary. This can be created with plasticard but I chose to use 2 types. 1 of them is bog standard black plasticard which is about 1 millimeter thick and the second type is a thin treadplate styled plasticard which will be glued on top of the black plasticard and will be the cab floor that you will see.

propped up chassis.jpg (128.65 KiB) Viewed 7421 times

Here you can see the extent of the problem with the frame having to be propped up by a screw due to the lack of a support. The cab floor when made will be fitted so that it rests on the rear end of the chassis and holds the body and the right height and angle.

cab floor crew side.jpg (109.69 KiB) Viewed 7422 times

Here I have added the cab floor which was created by cutting out a square from the 1 mil plasticard and a similar sized square from the tread plate plasticard. These were then glued together, filed flush and painted black. The crew, which are normally included in your hornby trainsets but can be purchased as part of the hornby locomotive super detail pack, were painted and added at a later point.

Cab floor underneath.jpg (101.42 KiB) Viewed 7421 times

This is what the cab floor looks like underneath. The reason why there is another piece of plasticard underneath is to raise the cab floor high enough so that it clears the rear wheels. When I test fitted the cab floor without this extra piece of plasticard, the wheel flanges were just touching the cab floor so I have done this just to be on the safe side. Once the cab floor was wedged into the right position, plastic glue was added to the places it made contact with framework and it allowed to me to make fine adjustments while the plastic was being melted together.

[AJFE 2488]

Next we move onto building up the frames so that the chassis can be fixed to it. The Lima Chassis was fixed in place by a large screw at the front which passed through the chassis, through a large hole above where the cylinders would have been and screws into the bottom of the smoke box. The hornby chassis will not let you do that but with a bit of tinkering the front end can still be screwed into place.

frames front.jpg (97.53 KiB) Viewed 7408 times

Here I have built up two ledges by using the black plasticard. If you look carefully, you can make out two thick lines on opposite sides of the big hole. These used to be locating lugs for the lima chassis. The hornby chassis has no need for these so they need to be removed and filed down. To build up the ledges, I started by gluing in pieces of plastic card on the sloped part of the framework. I then started glueing layers of plastic on top of this until it was level with the chassis. To be specific, it needs to be level with the bit that has the coupler unit fixed underneath it. Once this was dry, the chassis was fitted to the frames and held in place whilst a hole was drilled through the built up layers of plasticard using a hobby drill from Gamesworkshop (Quite a brilliant little tool). Once the hole has been drilled, I carefulley screwed in a screw through the chassis into the hole in the plasticard. I recommend using one of the small screws from the Lima Chassis to do this as they are the ideal size for this. Next job is to build up even more layers of plasticard on top of this so that the coupler can be moved forward of it's original position. It helps if you still have the chassis fixed in place while you do this so that you can build the plasticard up against the old coupler fixing point. Once this is done and dry, you can now fix the coupler to the frames. This is a very tricky job to do as plastic glue will not melt the coupler and plasticard together so you will need to drill another hole and screw the coupler to the frame. When screwing the coupler to the frame, I suggest using the original screw that screwed the coupler to the hornby chassis. One thing you will need to do is modify the coupler itself by cutting a small piece of plastic away from it so that it clears the screw holding the chassis to the frames. Once this is one, you can screw the coupler to the frames.

Couplers.jpg (140.05 KiB) Viewed 7408 times

The one on the left is the coupler before modification and the coupler on the right is after modification.

chassis fixed to frame.jpg (165.02 KiB) Viewed 7408 times

This is how it should look once you are finished with this stage from the bottom.

frame front sideview.jpg (160.14 KiB) Viewed 7408 times

And from the side.

[jcm@gwr]

Looks like a good job there, you've got round quite a few possible problems
in your build so far and it's looking good.
I have one tucked away somewhere and have been meaning to do something
with it for ages. I think this will spur me into pulling my finger out!
My only criticism is that if I were keeping the tension lock couplings I would
leave off the hook as it detracts from the overall look of the loco [also the
hooks on the wagons/coaches will be enough to couple].
Cheers, Jeff

[Lysander]

I also have one awaiting a Bachmann chassis but seeing your conversion I may substitute for Hornby. How do the wheels align with the splashers ?

Tony

[Bufferstop]

No the spacing is quite different. I had a spare Hornby chassis when I did mine and decided it was worth getting the Bachmann replacement chassis, which is no longer available. It's an upgraded split chassis version, can motor with worm and double gear drive. It's getting on for ten years old now, and touch wood no sign of the dreaded split plastic problem. Wonder if they changed the plastic as well? I fashioned the rear support from the last half inch chopped from the Lima chassis. It needed a bit slicing out of the underside of the boiler, but the chassis has a representation of the missing piece so looks ok. The Bachmann chassis is closer to the spacing of the Lima wheel arches than the Lima was. Might be worth a trawl on the net see if there's a secondhand one.

[AJFE 2488]

The wheels on both the hornby and bachmann chassis' are more evenly spread out than the lima one which has the centre wheels a few milimeters too close to the front wheels. With the hornby/ bachmann chassis fitted, it is very obvious how wrong Lima got it when they made their model as the splashers are not correctly spaced out. However this is only noticable if you look directly at the wheel sets from track level. It is not possible to get all the wheels lined up with the splashers as I can only get the front and rear splashers lined up with the centre wheels a few milimeters out. (Yes there is a rear splasher, you need to look very carefuly by the injector pipes and you'll see part of the rear splasher)

[siquelme]

I really need to pull my fingure out and get mine done

[AJFE 2488]

Apologies for the delay in posting an update but I have been presently been preocupied by going through the selection process with the British Army.
Anyway I have finished adapting the Lima body so that it will accept the hornby 0-6-0 chassis and hold it securely in place.
In the last update I had added plasticard to the front end of the frames to provide a ledge to screw the chassis onto. Now we move onto the rear end of the frames so that I can build up another ledge for the chassis to slot into.

rear lip side view.jpg (92.82 KiB) Viewed 7121 times

This photo shows how a ledge was made in order to securely hold the lip on the back of the hornby chassis.
This was done by adding four pieces of 1mm plasticard to the back of the rear bufferbeam and glued so that the chassis lip could sit on top securely. Next I had to stop the chassis from moving sideways. Square pieces of plasticard were added underneath the cab floor. These were fixed to a piece of plasticard that had been previously glued there in order to give the wheels clearance from the cab floor. 2 of the squares had one of the corners cut off so that part of the chassis could be seated properly. Once the glue had dryed and the plasticard painted black, the chassis could be placed in and held securely with minimal movement.

94xx front side view.jpg (99.51 KiB) Viewed 7121 times

And here we have one converted Lima 94xx with hornby chassis. All that is left to do is add cabside number plates and british railways insignia then we're done. On a final note, while I was having a mooch around in my local model shop I found a box filled with transfers and although I couldn't ind any suitable sized british railways logos, I did find a pack of Great Western Railway weight and tractive power markings (these consist of coloured circles and letters) which I immediately bought. It had all the letters and coloured circles to mark up the majority of the GWR loco fleet so I used the single red circle and the letter D to mark up the 94xx and the end result was much better than the previousley painted on markings.

cabside markings.jpg (127.35 KiB) Viewed 7121 times

[jcm@gwr]

Really has turned out well, you've done a nice job.
Jeff

[GeraldH]

A nice clear side-on shot of the finished loco, showing how the wheels line up with the splashers, would be very handy

[AJFE 2488]

Apologies for the very long delay as I have only recently returned from Army service but a update is much needed. A while back I said that I would convert the 94XX to DCC and that is what I have done today. Normally converting a DC loco would mean the decoder would be hard-wired into the loco however the last time I did this on my 14XX, it went bad as the wires came away from the decoder itself and I did not fancy re-soldering them. This time I have got hold of some 8 pin decoder sockets courtesy of NRM shop and I have fitted one into my 94XX as-well as my 14XX. If anyone is thinking about converting any of the chassis for these 2 locos then Hornby does provide guides on converting their "Oliver" TTTE model which is exactly the same as a regular 14xx but with a different paint job. For the Hornby chassis I used for converting my 94XX, I suggest using Hornby's guide for converting their "Thomas" model. These guides show how to hard-wire a decoder in however with a bit of initiative you can adapt this to fit a decoder socket in.
Anyway sockets in both locos are now wired in, a Saphirre Decoder for the 94XX and a regular Hornby 4 function decoder for the 14XX are now fitted and they run absolutely beautifully. Next stage now is to order the number-plates for both locos and order some British Railway crests for the 94XX. Pics will follow soon so wait out

[6C]

Welcome back hope you are enjoying your time in the Forces.....

I used your build as inspiration for a far less professional build of my own of a Shrewsbury-based 94xx - which I have 'on trial' as a heavy shunter on my Wirral based layout.

It is indeed a huge advantage having the Hornby chassis as a base for DCC - the Lima version would have been a nightmare !