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[quote user="davidmbedard"] Bachmann eh?  Tis a very difficult install.  There is absolutely NO room under the hood and you will need to mill out weight to make anything fit.  As well, the motor is NOT isolated from the frame and this will be a big issue.David B[/quote][quote user="davidmbedard"] I tend NOT to put decoders in visible areas.  David B[/quote]No need to worry here, Dave. Take a look at your Spectrum H16-44.  I used NCE D13SRs in most of mine, but I could have any decoder in there out of sight, now that I take a second look.  Wheeler, there is no need for the tiny Z decoders that I mentioned before either.  I used some that I bought earlier when I also thought there was little room in these road switchers.In the photo below the space between the little guys' heads is elevated above the top sill of the H16-44 cab window (which is too dark to see into anyway.)  And note that the cab roof on an H16-44 is the same roof level of the loco body. (This is the last one I hardwired...still need to attach the handrails etc.)Actually, if you get down you can peer through grills shown behind the cab out the other side, you will see that the top of the split frame is actually below the bottom of the grill sill....there is even enough room here to put in a sound decoder on top of the frame and further back from the visible grill opening.  [img]http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u172/dcrane_2007/007.jpg[/img] I haven't tried a sound decoder in these (and if this is your first hardwired conversion you might want to keep it simple) but I can see that a 1/2" round speaker could be inverted above the universal joint under the split frame.....or perhaps just a 3/8" speaker in a round baffle.  You would want to run the speaker leads down through the cab body, however, so they don't get pinched by the shell.....something that is almost always necessary if the speaker is going to down low in a narrow body loco.  Don't know how good a speaker that small would sound though.So there are a great many decoders that can be put in these locos out of sight.  There should be several posts here and on the web showing the steps of such conversions too.
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