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August 9, 2014 Remotoring a Rivarossi Cab Forward

Over the years I have remotored over a dozen Rivarossi Cab Forwards and created several posts on remotoring them.  This post is a new angle on remotoring.  After thinking about the dual Canon EN22 motor Cab Forward modification I had an idea bonk me on the head, "Why not make a new frame to fit the two Canon motors?"  I decided to do my thing on my CAD to see if it was easily doable.

I began by making a drawing of a Rivarossi Cab Forward "out of the box".


After about three days of dinking around off and on drawing several versions I came up with a scheme that I thought should be rather easy to do.


The picture above is a preliminary concept to see if it was a doable project.



After three or four days playing around with several versions the drawing above is the one I liked the best.  The inline shaft alignment should result in better efficiently with less mechanical problems.  After I drew up all the components to scale it was simple to move things around on the drawing.

By using K&S Brass Strips there is very little cutting.  The motor shaft alignment recess is easily accomplished by using .062" thick brass strips, three layers equal .186" and the shaft recess needed for alignment is .184".  Because of the curvature of the boiler in the Rivarossi shell the bottom brass strip works out to �" wide by 4 7/16" long.  The second layer also needs to be �" wide by only 1�" long, the top two strips are �" wide by 1�" long.  The wider top sections will give a larger working area for the Rivarossi gearbox.

After cutting the brass strips to size I used vice-grip pliers to hold the various pieces together to drill and tap holes so that I could keep them inline for soldering.  I used a 150 watt soldering iron to solder the brass then a sharp metal file to trim it up into a nice looking frame.

I have created a Directory on Google My Drive with the DesignCAD file, an actual size PDF as well a JPG of the drawing.  To access the drawings Click Here  






I have finished the brass frame and installed it in the Cab Forward shell and test run it with it's tender and both run terrific, very smooth with no wobble.




The picture above shows the brass frame in the shell wired to DCC specs.  In this version I'm going to install the 1.4 volt regulator in the tender with the sound decoder.  I'm going to use the green wire on pin 3 of the NMRA connector for the Marker lights to turn them on and off with DCC Function 3.

 I will add more to this post after I complete the wiring and add 8 ounces of lead bird shot to the boiler for added traction.

Added August 10, 2014


This dual motor conversion of a Rivarossi Cab Forward works so much better than the original that I'm going to make a second brass frame to experiment with.  The locomotive runs so unbelievably good I'm going to replace the frame in one of my kitbashed AC-9s also.

 Added August 15, 2014

After several hours of testing both a Cab Forward and a AC-9 using my home brew dual Canon EN22 motor brass frames I have come to the conclusion that dual motors with inline motor to gearbox alignment does away with all of the "Rivarossi Wobble".  Both run extremely smooth without any wobble.  I'm currently installing my third dual motor brass frame in a Rivarossi Cab Forward.  At this point my plan is to convert my entire Canon powered Rivarossi fleet with brass frames.