KIT NUMBER/NAME and CONTENTS (see PRICELIST for prices)

N-380 RAIL DETECTOR CARS 9167/4 3D printed shells/underbodies, slow coreless motordrive, cleaned/primed, no decals.

Prints will be cleaned and primed (but NOT painted), 8 wheel current pickup installed. super slow motor drive installed in DC version.

DCC with or without sound can be added by buyer.

HISTORY.

these cars were built by Jacob Press & Sons in 1948. Powered by a Buda 135HP gasoline engine. Destroyed in a train collision in 1960.

BUILDING INSTRUCTIONS.

The cars are delivered RTR (but not painted or glazed) in DC version with a super slow drive, with all-wheel current pickup.

Lead wheights - to be installed in the front/motor unit only) are also included to create better traction and pickup.

The 2 undercarriages are a - slight - press fit into the upper bodies.Seperate them by slightly/carefully pulling a "detector" shoe in 1 corner. You can take out all lead wheights now, starting with the 4 longitudinal ones. When reinserting the wheights start with the V-shaped front wheight into the V-shaped nose, then the flat wheight into the flat back and last the 4 longitudinal ones in both sides.The motor unit has tabs on its sides, fitting into openings into the "holding craddle" inside the front upper body, thereby positioning the motor unit securely.

Now you can reinstall the front undercarriage by lightly pressing it in place. Make sure the thinner crossbearer in the rectangular frame is in the front next to the large gear of the motor unit and the wider crossbearer is in the back.   .

Also check that the space between crossbearer and motor unit is equal in the front and back. This way the motor unit sits in its correct position (check the wheelsets versus outside bearings).

The rectangular frame of the undercarriage should just completely disappear into the upper body (level).

If desired you can easily add a hard wired DCC decoder in the empty trailer car. With a bit of extra work even sound....... see picture above. Same goes for lighting: there is a recess in the roof of both cars to accept a LED.

For sound there is not much choice of decoders....... I found only the Zimo MS500 to fit inside the trailer car together with a sugar cube speaker/soundchamber.

The "good" sound choice is rather limited fro the Zimo library but then there are no prototype recordings of this particular engine type as far as I know. So I chose the sound of the Galloping Goose... also gasoline, similar time frame and horsepower. The German Schienenbus would also sound guite nice but is lacking the bell.......

WARNING: please use the smallest gauge and most flexible wires to connect between both units. Stiff wires will result in

loss of power pickup up...... There are 4 "notches" next to the drawbar to accommodate the wires.

Painting is quite simple: aluminum roof and Santa Fe yellow carbody, although some pictures suggest a more "creamy" yellow. There are very few correct colored pictures around........For glazing I suggest using Microscale Kristal Klear.

Apply a 0,75-1,0 mm wide black decal stripe around both shells just below the windows. 

I could not find the red "moustache" for the front nose..... also no small "Indian Heads" for the front sides.Other similar ATSF prototype units were lacking these also.... so I took the liberty of omotting them.

Lettering is a bit of work........all letters are individual letters from Microscale set ........

    SANTA FE                                       SANTA FE              

        9167                                              detector

                                                                   car

                                                                     4

Enjoy and good luck!