I got this guy off Ebay. It is certainly a B&M P4 Pacific model. It has the racy slope front cab that was a P4 trademark. It's old, and has metal works with a plastic shell. I think it is the old , long out of production Athearn model, the one that graced the covers of the blue boxes all those years. I was unable to find the Athearn name marked on the outside of unit anywhere. I'll look harder when I take it apart. It's missing the pilot, the pilot deck, the front deck mounted air compressors and dirt shields, and the ladder/steps from the front deck up to the boiler side walkways. Probably took a head first trip to the floor at one time in its life. All but the ladders are available in brass castings. I have some drawings of a P4 somewhere in the old magazine collection, and the photo's in one of those B&M Trackside books. I have speed lettering decals from Model Graphics.
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">Looks like the basis of another project locomotive. Fix the works so it runs. Rebuild the front end from brass bar stock and detail castings. Light the headlamp. Glaze the cab windows. Add as much lead weight as will fit. Kadee couplers fore and aft.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
You've got the Athearn pacific, all right. They came out with two versions, one with all of the electrical components and pickup in the tender, save for the worm gear in the loco, and a later version in which both the loco and tender picked up electricity. You've got the earlier version with the plastic (non conductive) drivers. I had both versions back in the 'sixties, unfortunately, both were ruined in shipment between Texas and California. I remember them as being fairly good pullers, but awfully rough riding. However, for their time, they were very handsome locos, and still look pretty good today. I don't know how you could replace the drivers and make them electrically conductive, but it might be possible with driver sets from NWSL and some Tomar pickup sliders wired to the tender. But it might be worth trying at least.
I mean, how else are you going to get a B&M Pacific short of expensive used brass, right?
Good luck. Keep us posted
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Like Tom, I've always thought those were nice looking Pacifics, but boy did they have their problems. The main difficulty is split axle gears, which can only be repaired by turning brass sleeves to slide over the axles. There is a long-running discussion over on the Vintage HO Operators group on Yahoo about them, so I'm sure you could get some help over there identifying the version and what can be done for it. Early 60's Athearn Pacifics
Nelson
Ex-Southern 385 Being Hoisted
My recollection is that Athearn announced that locomotive and had it in the catalog but the initial run had their (in)famous "Hi-F" (rubber band) drive that just simply did not work.
Dave Nelson
dknelson My recollection is that Athearn announced that locomotive and had it in the catalog but the initial run had their (in)famous "Hi-F" (rubber band) drive that just simply did not work. Dave Nelson
Dave,I recall the HI FI drive..My Dad use rubber "O" rings for bands with a double shaft Pittmann motor.
Thanks for mentioning that old steamer.
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David,Good luck with your project..Keep us updated.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
The Athearn B&M Pacific project inches forward.
Step one.
New brass pilot deck. Hacksawed to length from a piece of brass bar stock and filed square.
Step 2. Order detail parts. Half of the parts said made in China. I guess the other half was stock left over from before CalScale moved production to China. All of the parts had a Cali warning "This product contains materials kno to cause cancer in the state of California". Brass castings are a carcinogen? I guess Californians have strange metabolisms.
Step 3 Scratch build the steps from brass strip. Couldn't find any steps for sale that I dared risk money on. There was one or two without pictures, just stock numbers, and I figured Murphy's law would cause anything I couldn't see to not fit. Cut the step sides and steps from brass with a pair of delicate 12 inch tin snips.
Side Step. Wood jig that held the ladders together while soldering. The dark marks are where the soldering iron scorched the wood.
By the way, the post editor really sucks for posting pictures. You can;t see where the picture is in the text, after doing the insert picture thing, the picture is invisible.
Spiffy! Have you looked into the Custom Finishing's B&M Steam detail set?
http://www.walthers.com/exec/productinfo/247-343
I plan on doing this project as well, however with the sheet metal streamlining over the domes. A set of cars in East Wind paint to accompany it would be nice as well.
Alex
Interesting. That Custom Finishing part number (247-343) does not appear in my big Walthers book. The website image shows a bell and bell hanger suitable for mounting in the front of the locomotive. I got one of those from Cal Scale. I don't need a headlamp housing.
I have a drawing showing the stream line casing. I never liked the looks well enough to consider modeling it.
If you are thinking of kit bashing a P4, a Mantua Pacific is not a bad starting place. The dimensions of the Mantua match the P4 major dimensions quite closely.
A friend of mine did one up. FYI: check the drive shaft connection to the drivers from the motor. His would spin under a load and cause the engine to have poor pulling power. A little dab of epoxy made a world of difference.
Paul A. Cutler III
Yet more progress. I soldered the pilot and the air pump shields to the hand made brass pilot deck. This required a jig to hold both parts in place while soldering. The air pumps (not shown in this pic), were attached with 2-56 machine screws.
She runs pretty well. Since all electrical pickup is in the tender, you can run her in by just blocking the locomotive up off the test track. I packed the pilot and trailing truck with as much lead as would fit to keep them on the track. There are a couple of places where "hot" parts come very close to touching the frame and short circuiting. I cut, fit and superglued bits of sheet styrene to the chassis to serve as electrical insulators in those places.
Here is the new pilot assembly installed'
Then wire hand rails and grab irons dress up the tender.
Still to do. Repair broken spots on cab. Install handrails, bell, generator. Run it in on the layout. Then paint. I plan to use blacken it on the bright brass parts so they don't show up bright yellow when the paint chips a little bit. Glaze the cab windows after painting.
I am very impressed Dstar.
Looking forward to another up date.
Cuda Ken
I hate Rust
Nice work on that pilot, David. I finally picked up one of these at a train show late last year in excellent shape. It runs okay, but the motor seems a bit on the anemic side no matter how well I clean and lube it. I may try a neodymium magnet transplant, if I can find one the right dimensions.
I'm looking forward to seeing yours all dressed up.
I'd be interested in how the magnet transplant works out. I haven't checked mine to see if it has enough motor power to spin the drivers.
If I do it, I'll let you know. Right now it's on the back burner as far as projects go. Darth Santa Fe did one with one of these early Athearn motors, but I can't locate the thread.
I think these motors were weak. They look like they have a sizable magnet, but if you remove one of the endplates to get a look at it (be sure you don't take the field apart), it's not very thick.
Edit: Just found it.
David:
EVERYTHING out here in California causes cancer, so we normal Californians (and yes, there are some of us, LOL!) just ignore the "Nannies" who wrote the warnings into the laws and let them dither away like the Chicken Little's that they are ("The SKY is falling, the SKY is falling!")
With that out of the way, you sure have turned that handsome locomotive into a labor of love. That's terrific work on the pilot and the steps. It's really nice to see someone take an older locomotive that others might ignore and really turn it into something.
Kudos to you!
P4 project is finally complete. Had a terrible amount of trouble with electrical pickup. Locomotive would loose power and stop. I tried adding track wipers but if I had enough pressure on the wipers to pick up juice, they lifted the drivers off the track and the locomotive stalled. Plus the damn wipers got caught in every turnout. The final solution to the power problem was to replace the antique Athearn power connectors with a modern plug and socket. This made the locomotive run fairly dependably.
Paint is dark auto primer from a rattle can. Decals are the Oddballs B&M Speed Lettering set. Locomotive is emerging from Bunkbed Tunnel on my layout.
http://i241.photobucket.com/albums/ff111/Mittersill/100_0875.jpg
Lets see if the pix come out. My usual picture site Photobucket is failing to respond and timeing out, so I posted these on Facebook. Lets see if the trains editor can cope with a Facebook URL.
Follow up. Photobucket came back to life this morning so I uploaded to Photobucket and used the "Direct Link" pointers. Apparently the links offered by Facebook are not right for the photo editor at trains.com.
This was a duplicate post. We don't seem to have a delete option, so I made it blank.
Nice work, David. Is the boiler shell seated in the back? I can see the motor through a gap between it and the runningboard.
I had a heck of a time getting the drawbar properly tweaked so that it didn't interfere with the trailing truck and booster, or lift the tender up a bit. I also reduced the spring tension on the brushes quite a bit, and the spongy motor response is gone. It's a bit noisy, but runs well.
The top boiler shell could be seated better than it is. The drawbar required a LOT of tweaking before the tender rode properly.
Hope this helps fix the date of manufacturing. The warnings required in Calif.(on everything made of anything) did not appear until after 1986 when that rediculous ,money wasting ,job destroying law was fumbled through our glorious state legislature.
As I remember the old Athearn B&M Pacific, it only had one compressor on the pilot deck - the engineer's side. Gave it kind of a neat asymmetric look. Did the B&M also have dual pumps?
Also, you don't want to forget the steam and air piping for the pumps. Complex, but if you can swing it - it'll look pretty cool.
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Gary M. Collins gmcrailgNOSPAM@gmail.com
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"Common Sense, Ain't!" -- G. M. Collins
http://fhn.site90.net
gmcrail As I remember the old Athearn B&M Pacific, it only had one compressor on the pilot deck - the engineer's side. Gave it kind of a neat asymmetric look. Did the B&M also have dual pumps? Also, you don't want to forget the steam and air piping for the pumps. Complex, but if you can swing it - it'll look pretty cool.
They were originally built with a single deck mounted compressor and were later modified (during WWII, I believe) to have two compressors.
As built: http://www.divisionpoint.com/photos/B+M_P4s/B+M_3716a.jpg
As running when taken out of service: http://www.divisionpoint.com/photos/B+M_P4s/B+M_3715a.jpg
Hope this helps.
Andre
Do not know if this will be useful. but here is a diagram of what is suppose to be a 1964 model.
http://www.hoseeker.net/assemblyexplosionAthearn/Assembly%20Explosion%20Athearn%204-6-2%201964.jpg
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
richg1998 Do not know if this will be useful. but here is a diagram of what is suppose to be a 1964 model.
Aside from the gear being on the main driver axle instead of the rear set, it's the same as the 1962 version.
David, there's a tab on the rear of the chassis that fits into a slot below the cab, so I'm guessing the slot is broken if the back of the boiler can lift like that.