BLI and KATO NW-2 swap

[joelm]

Hey folks: Probably covered here already, but I cannot find it.

Has anyone swapped the KATO NW-2 shell onto the BLI NW-2 chassis? I have a bunch of custom painted Kato's (Phase I-IV) and the BLI Phase V shell is not correct for my railroad.   

If so, can you share the process and assess the level of difficulty? 

Thanks, Joel

[peteski]

I have no experience with this shell swap, but I'm curious as to why you want to swap shells?  What's wrong with Kato mechanism?  Or you just want the ready-to-run DCC sound feature?

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I'm pretty sure that the walkway is part of the chassis on the BLI engine. That would make it difficult for a swap.

[ChristianJDavis1]

I'm pretty sure that the walkway is part of the chassis on the BLI engine. That would make it difficult for a swap.

Looking at Spookshow's review (http://www.spookshow.net/loco/blinw2.html), it appears that it is. This means you could abandon the walkways on your custom ones and repaint the BLI ones to match, or grind the BLI ones off and hope the Kato ones fit in their place, along with the rest of the shell.

[joelm]

Thanks for the input gents.

Peteski: I was hoping for a relatively easy way to run sound in NW-2's with body styles appropriate to my RR (New York, Ontario and Western in 1954).  I've seen some tutorials on Railwire showing how to get sound into the KATO, but that's not a project i'm interested in tackling. The KATO's run fine.  I may decide to try to modify the BLI shell to add the Phase I-IV hood feature, but that may be more work than putting the sound in the KATO! We'll see.  Joel

[Cajonpassfan]

Yea Joel, the BLI shell is metal: good for weight, not so much for reworking...
Good luck...
Otto

[wcfn100]

I may decide to try to modify the BLI shell to add the Phase I-IV hood feature, but that may be more work than putting the sound in the KATO! We'll see.  Joel

That's what I'll be doing as well.  The plan is to first make sure there is space for the stepped hood without getting obstructed by anything inside.  Then try and shape the metal to the new hood contour.  If that fails, just file out the whole space and rebuild with styrene as many times as it takes to be happy.

Jason