hornby 9f conversion

[Peter-357218]

hi there im currently trying to convert one of my 9f locos from tender drive to loco drive and am trying to locate the motor fixing tray to mount motor to chassis does anyone have any spare or where i can find what i need as no part number on 9f service sheet

[Topcat2018]

Sounds like a massive job. I'm not familiar with 9Fs, but none of the tender-drive locos I have (which are numerous) has a hole in the chassis where the gear on the drive wheel (which you would have to find as a spare) could engage with the worm on the motor. Maybe someone has more expertise on these locos but my opinion is that it would probably be easier and maybe cheaper to look for a good second-hand loco-drive 9F.

[Going Spare]

The casting (moulding?) upon which the motor sits and forms the top section of the gear tower down to the rear axle is not offered by Hornby as a replacement part so you will be reliant upon someone breaking a chassis to obtain it.

Also, as your model's body was not intended to accommodate a motor, is there the space within it to fit one and its retainers?

Unless you are relishing the challenge, Topcat's advice seems by far the easier, and possibly cheaper, option!

[508006]

I did once convert a tender driven 9F to loco drive and I can tell you from personal experience it was not the easiest thing I have ever done, my reasons are listed below

1 ) The chassis has to be drilled ( with the 9F this can only be above the 5th driving axle at the cab end ) from inside where the boiler is.

2 ) Once drilled, the chassis requires significant filing to smooth out where the gear will sit, this presents another problem because the recesses for the bearings are eliminated and consequently the 5th axle then flops around with the severe risk of locking up the drive.

3 ) The plastic underboiler piece which holds the valve gear in place has to be cut in order to fit the motor of choice into the loco, the rear of that underboiler piece is usable to hold a tender drive gear between any gear fitted onto the 5th axle once its bearings are removed and wheels re-quartered.

4 ) At the time, my motor of choice was a motor from a Bachmann split chassis locomotive which has the perfect worm gear to mesh with hornby gearing. Because there were now no bearings on the 5th axle, I had to scratch build a slot for the axle ( again not an easy task )

I can definitely say that after quite a lot of modification, snapped drill bit, expletives and the odd occasional blood draw the loco did work and did haul trains 'but' there was a drawback, it required a lot of extra weight which was not easy to come by in the confines of a 9F boiler which had to be balanced by adding weight into the cab which prevented fitting a loco crew.

My best advice would be don't convert the chassis you have, search on ebay for 'hornby locomotive chassis' ( quotation marks not required ) and look for a locomotive drive 9F chassis on there along with a suitable tender chassis.

The loco and tender bodies will fit onto these newer chassis with a little modification on the tender chassis but it would mean you would then have a loco drive 9F.

I did have a Bachmann 9F a few years ago which was a great loco and had good haulage power too. For some reason the Bachmann body came apart and I found that by just making the slot at the front of a hornby 9F body into 1 big slot and drilling through the chassis to the cab floor that the hornby 9F body was a perfect fit on the Bachmann 9F chassis. It ran very well until excessive wear on the main coupling rod caused the driving wheels to lock up but I got a good 3 or 4 year out of it.

Hope this helps

[ColinB]

When I do this sort of thing I just buy a later chassis and fit it to the earlier body. If 9F design is similar to other Hornby locos, it should fit.