At a train show this afternoon, I picked up a brand-spankin'-new P2K F7A with QSI sound for a pittance. Wrong road name, but that's okay, because I had an older P1K F3A at home that obviously didn't come equipped with sound.
Notice I said "had" a P1K F3A without sound.
All it took was to shave a couple locating ridges off the inside of the P1K shell with a #17 blade, and remove a brace glued to the roof that as far as I could tell didn't do anything anyway, and that P1K F3A shell dropped right onto the QSI-equipped P2K F7A chassis.
In all of about 15 minutes I had converted that F3A to QSI sound for about what a good sound decoder and speaker with enclosure would have cost me, PLUS I now have an F7A that I can flea-way to recoup some of my expense.
It'll MU quite nicely, and prototypically, with the P2K GP9 I converted to sound the same way (and for about the same low cost) a while back.
It's nice to be able to find shells that fit a different chassis. Another club member here found a couple of P2K E8s at a train show last year, and we were able to fit some Rivarossi E8 shells onto them. He models the Monon and had purchased the Rivarossi E8s at a previous train show but the motors in them were worthless. The seller had even taken the motor out of one and converted it into a dummy engine. So now he has a Monon A-B-A set with two powered A units using the P2K chassis and a Tsunami decoder with dual speakers in a dummy B unit.
Well done. I went to a show on Saturday, and I felt good getting a couple of rolls of plaster cloth for a good price. You've sure got me beat.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I keep meaning to attempt this - Trainworld has some good deals on P2K Geeps with sound, which I would swap my Reading GP7 shells onto. Rnadom "their choice" roadname but I don't care. Same deal, resell odd roadname "non sound" version of eBay and recoup some of the money.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
rrinker I keep meaning to attempt this - Trainworld has some good deals on P2K Geeps with sound, which I would swap my Reading GP7 shells onto. Rnadom "their choice" roadname but I don't care. Same deal, resell odd roadname "non sound" version of eBay and recoup some of the money. --Randy
My "other" P2K sound conversion was an older GP9 that got a GP7 chassis. All I had to do with that one was shorten the rear light bar and polish up the cut end a little. I have a few more GP's I'd like to do - I'll have to check TW's prices.
Steve