Life Like replacement motors. What are people using?

[Vaderta]

My 9 year old son is very much into finding beat up locomotive and making them run again. He watches a YouTube channel with a guy in Canada that people mail in their old broken down locomotives and he gets them running again.

So fast forward to this weekend and we are at my local hobby shop. Someone brought in their old locomotives and we ended up buying two of them. One Walthers that we got running really well and one Life Like Proto 1000 F3 that is in rough shape. We spent hours working on it. It was wired all wrong so sorted that out.  The motor is a double shaft can motor that would barely run. Cleaned the commutator and could see the brushes were shot. Long story short. We got it going and it ran for an hour before the motor was to weak to go on
 It will run if you give the flywheel a turn , but once it stops it won't get moving again on its own without giving it assistance. 

Here is the deal. I like that my son wants to learn how to work on trains. But economically replacement parts cost more than I can buy the same locomotive in C8 condition on ebay for. I am sure some of you when motors go bad source them from somewhere else, especially when they are not available.  Any tips would be appreciated.  I believe the shafts are 2mm but have not been able to get the rest of the measurements just yet.
Thanks for any input/advice

[Mark5]

Havent done this myself, but some ideas here:

https://forum.mrhmag.com/post/remotoring-proto-2000-diesels-12208115

And here:

https://groups.io/g/RepowerAndRegear/topic/repowering_proto_2000_gp30/80986346

Good luck

[Vaderta]

Thanks for the links


I did in fact decide to install a Kato motor into the locomotive.  I used the HM5 Kato motor without flywheels.

The install on a Proto 1000 F3A was relatively straight forward. I removed the stock motor and the rubber motor isolators on each side of the motor. I used vinyl siding color samples I had laying around and cut squares to silicone into the bottom of the chassis. This was to get the motor height correct so the motor shafts would be at the proper height to align with the drive shafts.  I then cut the motor shafts which are 2mm to the correct length. Once I test fit the motor and made sure the fitment was proper and there was no binding I used Loctite Silicone to adhere the motor into the bottom of the chassis. Less is more at this stage as there are some openings on one end of the motor that can get fouled which would lead to ruining the motor. I should note that I cut the brass motor leads to size before installation and soldered new leads to them and isolated them bother with Kapton tape. After the motor was positioned just right I let is set for 24 hours. Once the silicone was dry I took hot glue, turned the chassis to one side and adhered the top of the motor to the top of the chassis. I repeated this on the other side. The reason for turning the chassis on its side was to keep the hot glue from running down into the bottom of the locomotive. The factory Life Like brass flywheels were able to be used . Just need to make sure if you reuse those flywheels they are positioned well and don't interfere with and bind up against the chassis. I did rewire the locomotive and soldered all connections instead of using the stock wire fasteners along with installing a aftermarket LED to replace the dim incandescent bulb. All the drive gears were cracked so I used the Walthers replacements to fix that issue.

Was it worth it? I guess that is up for debate. I bought the locomotive not running for $5. The motor was $33 including tax and the drive wheels were $20 . Other than my time the rest of the stuff I had laying around. I know I could buy one on Ebay in various conditions ranging between $35 -$95 with average cost for a good one about $65-$75. Wether it was worth the cost I don't know, buy I now have a very good running locomotive and my son and I had a good time together with this project.

[Carolina Northern]

my son and I had a good time together with this project.


Worth more than the money you put into it.

Enjoy it.

Don

[eja]

my son and I had a good time together with this project.


Worth more than the money you put into it.

Enjoy it.

Don

How true !

[Philip H]

If you PM me the general dimensions of your motor needs I may have a few things that can help.