I want to start off by saying this can be a straight forward install or you can
take a few additional steps and you will be rewarded with better control of the
lights, it’s your choice. To help you make a choice I would like to point out a
few behaviors of the locomotive if you choose the straight forward install. Like
most people, I didn’t bother looking at the wiring diagram that came with the loco
and went ahead and installed the decoder in the plug and play (straight forward
install) fashion. After I got the loco back together and back on the track I noted
that the headlight and cablight are not constant. In other words, they go from off
to dim at the first crack of the throttle. Then they increase from dim to full brightness
as you increase the throttle. These characteristics happen in forward or reverse
with the headlight function on or off. If I had looked at the wiring diagram or
paid attention to the wires while I had it apart I would have noticed the lights
are hooked up to the motor! Take note that the backup light does function as we
have come to expect, only in reverse and constant brightness.
The other behavior I have seen in my loco as well as Randy’s is once you turn on
the class lights they stay on any time the loco has power. This has happen in two
of two installs, so one could assume this is by design. If you want to eliminate
this behavior you will need to remove the small circuit board that is in the front
of the boiler and replace it with an appropriate resistor on the common wire.
On to the installation. I generally start with the tender since it’s pretty simple.
Start by taking the trucks off the tender. Note the wheels pick up from the fireman’s
side of the tender as is the standard. With the trucks out of the way you can remove
the 4 small screws that will allow you to remove the shell, but before you do you’ll
need slide the pipes out from the frame. I used a flat bladed screw driver to push
them out from the center of the frame. Once the pipes are out of the way you can
remove the tender shell.
As you can see I opted to mount the speaker face down on the tender deck utilizing
the pre-drilled speaker holes. Another option as Randy did is to install the speaker
face up in the coal bunker underneath a coal load. For my install the speaker wires
run along the tender deck and out through the small opening under the doors to the
coal bunker, just the same as the back-up light wires. On my next C-19 I will explore
other option for routing the wires and will reflect any improvements here. With
the wiring completed you can put the tender back together and remember that the
pick-up wheels are on the fireman’s side.
I opted to replace the connector for the back-up light and used a two-pin connector
from Grizzly Mountain Engineering. If you decide to do this, be sure to reverse
the connectors (m/f f/m) so you can’t cross up the speaker and back-up light!
For the engine there are three screws to remove and they are shown in the red circles.
One is underneath the pilot truck, but it is not necessary to remove the truck.
The other two are on either side of the drawbar. The instruction says to remove
the injector pipes, but I found that it wasn’t necessary even though you can see
one that is off. I’ve marked the screw for the other injector pipe with a yellow
circle.
Before you remove the loco shell beware of three details that have clearance problems.
The first two are the supports from the smokebox to the pilot deck. These need to
clear the uncoupling lift-bar. The other detail is a pipe that comes up from behind
the cylinder on the engineer’s side and continues on above the running board and
back into the cab. The pipe is fastened to the back of the cylinder but the other
end comes out of the cab.
Once the shell is off of the loco you’ll need to pull the decoder wiring harness
plug out of the boiler. There is also a circuit board inside the boiler, this one
is for the class lights, but I was unable to pull it out on my loco until I was
forced to. Before you can plug the decoder in you need to remove the circuit board
that the wiring harness plug is attached to. Both Randy and I found this difficult
to remove due to the tight fight. I actually broke a common wire (as you can see
in the picture) and another wire leading to the class lights which forced me to
extract the class lights circuit board and rewire everything.
An easy way I found to remove the circuit from the plug is to break the top of the
casing as seen below. With that removed the plug came out easy.
Next, add the mating connector to the ends of the purple speaker wires. If you are
planning on using the sound cam you will want to connect it now also. I personally
choose to set the chuff rate in the decoder, as this eliminates any double-chuffs
due to the cam/wiper getting dirty.
Now is the time to decide if you want to spend a few extra minutes to change the
headlight and cab light behavior. If so, you’ll need to disconnect the leads for
the lights at the motor. You should see an orange and black wire on one motor terminal
and a grey and black on the other. Disconnect the black wires. Follow the wires
back to the boiler and you find the wires split as they branch off to each light.
Keep one as it is and connect it to the blue common wire. The other headlight/cab
light lead needs to be split, then you can connect the headlight lead to white wire
on the decoder wiring harness plug and the cab light lead to the brown (function
5) wire.
With these connections in place you can plug the decoder in and test the loco to
be sure it is working properly before you put it back together. When everything
is working properly you can stuff the decoder into the boiler. As you put the loco
back together you’ll need to check the wiring. Get as much of it as you can into
the boiler or out of the way to avoid pinching the wires. Also, remember to check
the parts that have clearance issues as you are putting the loco back together.
Once you have it all back together sit back and enjoy your C-19!
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