N scale BLI PRR F7A shell seating problem...

[Dave V]

Late last year I bought a BLI F7A/B set on eBay (the newer Paragon4 version). Looks great, sounds great, runs great (though I bought another powered B unit to boost pulling power). But I really hadn't run it or done much with it until the last few weeks when I had an actual full loop to run it on.

At the Colorado RPM I noticed the back end of the A unit sits too high.





I took the shell off (which requires removing the front coupler) and did some testing... I think the speaker wire is in contact with one of the Trainphone antenna studs that extend into the interior of the shell. I trimmed some plastic around the wires to try to let them lie flatter, but that was tedious work to avoid severing the speaker wires. I'm not 100% sure that's the problem though. But then again, this is not a problem with the powered B-unit which does not have Trainphone antenna.

I reached out to BLI. We'll see what they say.

[squirrelhunter]

I had a Lowell Smith SP&S passenger F3A that had a similar problem. The issue was the supporta for the steam generator parts stuck down too far into the shell and were interfering with the shell fit on the chassis. I ended up carefully trimmed the supports inside the shell to get things to fit right.

[kornellred]

A question  -  I am not 100 percent certain (although I should be), didn't the PRR F7A units have the larger number boards?  I know there was a short period toward the end of F3 production  when the technical improvements that turned the F3 into an F7 were not fully implemented in the carbody styling.   There were F3 units that did not have the high fan shrouds.

[Mark5]

A question  -  I am not 100 percent certain (although I should be), didn't the PRR F7A units have the larger number boards? 

Here's sister unit 9691 - with the small number boards: https://www.rr-fallenflags.org/prr/prr9691s.jpg

[davefoxx]

A question  -  I am not 100 percent certain (although I should be), didn't the PRR F7A units have the larger number boards?  I know there was a short period toward the end of F3 production  when the technical improvements that turned the F3 into an F7 were not fully implemented in the carbody styling.   There were F3 units that did not have the high fan shrouds.

According to photos on rrpicturearchives.net, No. 9692 had small numberboards.

DFF

[robert3985]

I had the same problem with one of my BLI F3's, and it was the big blue Rolling Thunder antenna wire on top of the decoder that was the problem.  The speaker wires are tiny so they weren't interfering with anything.

I just repositioned the big, thick blue Rolling Thunder antenna wire, and the shell easily fit lower where it should be. 

I have an ABBA setup (UP of course) so there is no Trainphone antenna things sticking down through the shells on my stuff.

Since in my time period UP still had doors on the lead unit's pilot coupler, I removed the coupler on my lead unit and put closed coupler doors on, which were included as accessories in the jewel case, which just happened to make shell removal much easier on the problem A unit.  I used MTL True Scale couplers to replace the supplied couplers and an N-Possible on the nose of the last trailing A unit.  When I get around to it, I'll replace all of the couplers with N-possibles, but, this lashup is what I run on my layout with no switching duties, although I've been tempted to throw a GP-9 into it to ugly-fy it as UP was infamous for.  Luckily, N-Possibles couple up to Tru Scales, so no problemo.

Since I'll never be using BLI Rolling Thunder, I considered just snipping the antenna off...or de-soldering it, but, repositioning it worked out fine, so I kept it attached.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Dave V]

Thanks Bob! It didn't look like it was sticking up too far, but I can check again!

[Dave V]

OK, I know it's cliché, but sometimes you have to look at a problem from another angle. In this case, literally:



Yep! I got to thinking--after coming up with nothing on the back end--what if the a$$ is in the air because it's face down on the bed? And yes, the front end was clearly sitting too low. A little shimming brought the front end back up.



You can see that there's still something causing the A unit shell to sit a little higher than both B units. But at least now the A unit shell is parallel to the railhead. And that may be good enough for me for a while. Maybe BLI will come up on the net with an answer, but for now, this is good enough to call it a night.