Model Train Journal

Are any of you familiar with the Sunset GG1 which shipped sometime around 2010? If so then you may recall the 2 rail version could barely pull itself around because only four of the 6 drive axles where powered. It also did not have great motors. After sitting in a box as a parts kit, it's now back together since 2011. Pittman motors replaced the originals and two additional gearboxes on the inner most drive wheels on each side. These where unpowered idlers previously.

Nice looking, Michael. A couple of questions: I am guessing that you were able to procure the same gearboxes as the originals, as opposed to replacing them all. I would not have guessed that they were easy to find. Did the new gearboxes come with drivers, or did you have to mount the worm gears from the gearbox onto the original unpowered drivers? Also, I would guess that you either had to replace the original worm shaft with a longer one that reached all three gearboxes, or it's a two-shaft setup with some kind of universal joint to the third gearbox (which is commonly done to provide better equalization and to prevent possible binding). Finally, how does the motor output get transmitted to the worm shafts? Is there a gear tower, a cog belt, or other? It's not obvious to me from the photo.

On a different tangent, I have to admit that I was not aware that Sunset did a GG1. There have been a lot of versions. I know the old ones: Alexander did two: a pre-war cast bronze and a post-war cast aluminum. Baldwin also did a cast bronze version, which I think is a decent model and, for my money, the best of the Baldwins. I believe Bill Wolfer and House of Duddy both had brass versions (which I want to say are related). I want to say these were imported from Japan, but I could be wrong about that. I recall the Weaver made a big splash and sold well (in the late 80s or early 90s?). Who else? I want to say Kohs did one. And I know Lionel did one some time back. I have seen one and I recall that it was a pretty good model (and I want to say it was die cast). Any others? Max Gray, USH, Westside, OMI, PSC, ???

Hi Jim,

R.K. Maroon wrote:Nice looking, Michael. A couple of questions: I am guessing that you were able to procure the same gearboxes as the originals, as opposed to replacing them all.

Yes, it was as easy as emailing Scott and paying for two which also came as complete gearboxes minus the worm shaft. I probably could have done it sooner.

R.K. Maroon wrote:I would not have guessed that they were easy to find. Did the new gearboxes come with drivers, or did you have to mount the worm gears from the gearbox onto the original unpowered drivers?

The gearboxes sent to me came with 3-rail drivers. The worm gears were not installed on the worm shaft. I replaced the 3-rail drivers and installed the worm on the new worm shaft.

R.K. Maroon wrote:Also, I would guess that you either had to replace the original worm shaft with a longer one that reached all three gearboxes, or it's a two-shaft setup with some kind of universal joint to the third gearbox (which is commonly done to provide better equalization and to prevent possible binding).

The original worm shaft was replaced with a new longer worm shaft. It is a single shaft on trio of drivers, it does not bind but there is quite a high shaft load. Equalization would be nice but the journal springs are so heavy it's probably minimal. I didn't put universals because the space is limited especially where the truck mounts to the body. I drew and printed a pair of bolsters which allowed the shaft to travel through. The original design had a bolster that interferes with a 3rd powered drive axle.

R.K. Maroon wrote:Finally, how does the motor output get transmitted to the worm shafts? Is there a gear tower, a cog belt, or other? It's not obvious to me from the photo.

It's a typical cog belt.

R.K. Maroon wrote:On a different tangent, I have to admit that I was not aware that Sunset did a GG1. There have been a lot of versions. I know the old ones: Alexander did two: a pre-war cast bronze and a post-war cast aluminum. Baldwin also did a cast bronze version, which I think is a decent model and, for my money, the best of the Baldwins. I believe Bill Wolfer and House of Duddy both had brass versions (which I want to say are related). I want to say these were imported from Japan, but I could be wrong about that. I recall the Weaver made a big splash and sold well (in the late 80s or early 90s?). Who else? I want to say Kohs did one. And I know Lionel did one some time back. I have seen one and I recall that it was a pretty good model (and I want to say it was die cast). Any others? Max Gray, USH, Westside, OMI, PSC, ???

MTH had GG1's scale and not scale. Bob Lavezzi has a Congressional Silver MTH version converted by the late Joe Foehrkolb. Yes Kohs did a few versions, and Max Gray unpainted.

Except for the power problem Pitogo fixed, these (Sunset did two versions, one with rivets) were the best I have seen. My collection is Alexander, Duddy, Baldwin, and Jack Collier, many with Wolfer trucks.

I await a bargain Lionel JLC with crumbled trucks for conversion to Wolfer. I am sure some day these will be a dime a dozen.

Well it's back to engineering with this one. Three axles all on a single drive shaft with 3 worm gears was too noisy and very high load on the motors, pulling 3amps all by itself without any cars. Not exactly quiet and smooth, also the bearings on all of the shaft are all brass.

Upgrade attempt 2.0.

Originally as delivered only the two outer drives on each truck where powered and there was an idler right under where most of the weight of the locomotive sat. Now we have all three powered but how to get power transferred to them all? Actually here you can see a 4mm shaft running through where there once was a brass post soldered to that bar that ran up to meet the bottom side of the GG1 floor.


To lighten the shaft load, I cut the powered section to have one free and two coupled drive wheels. Hopefully this should lessen the shaft load as the two coupled wheels should float nicely together and the solo will just do its thing. The transfer will be through an NWSL delrin dog bone and 2 pairs of 3D printed PLA-CF drive cups to mate with D flats on 4mm shafts. Because of tight clearances between gearboxes and motor mount this needed to be custom.


Mockup


Because the original plastic drive pulley was so long I needed to replace them with shorter aluminum version to fit in a bearing.


The bearing will mate with another 3D printed part that will hold down the solo drive wheel. Yes it's slightly oval to allow for side to side movement of 1mm but not up down. These are attached with to existing holes in the frame that was drilled out and tapped for screws, see second picture above.


The updated drive. Also because the original drive did not have a bearing on the front end of the pulley this put an uneven load but was kept straight with the solid shaft across the gearboxes. Now the load is spread across a bearing on the front and a bearing on the gearbox. Most of the original brass 4mm x 8mm x3mm bearings in the gearboxes have been replaced with ball bearings hopefully this will smooth out and reduce friction and noise. This is a high speed shaft. A few notes here as well, to help spread the weight of this heavy engine (there are four lead blocks that came from the factory) I added a sprung bar to put weight down over the front drive wheels and are supported with a ball bearings to interface with bottom of the GG1 floor for a nice smooth side to side. The original interfering brass post was replaced by another 3D printed part with a 10mm hole to allow a drive shaft to connect the two gearboxes. I thought of adding ball bearings here but it's probably not needed since there is only a small amount of movement at this pivot point. The kingpin screws holding down each truck is a #12-32 and thankfully fusion360 allows me to insert threads in holes to be printed. Probably not as strong as threaded inserts but is still quite good. This is also version 2.0, the original was too weak so I also removed the unnecessary brass insert on the GG1 floor.


End of Part 1 upgrade attempt 2.0

Mike, thank you for the GG1 update. Once again, 3 D printing came through for good results.

Dan Weinhold

R.K. Maroon wrote:On a different tangent, I have to admit that I was not aware that Sunset did a GG1. There have been a lot of versions. I know the old ones: Alexander did two: a pre-war cast bronze and a post-war cast aluminum. Baldwin also did a cast bronze version, which I think is a decent model and, for my money, the best of the Baldwins. I believe Bill Wolfer and House of Duddy both had brass versions (which I want to say are related). I want to say these were imported from Japan, but I could be wrong about that. I recall the Weaver made a big splash and sold well (in the late 80s or early 90s?). Who else? I want to say Kohs did one. And I know Lionel did one some time back. I have seen one and I recall that it was a pretty good model (and I want to say it was die cast). Any others? Max Gray, USH, Westside, OMI, PSC, ???

Jim, Shooting from the hip a bit here. Bill Wolfer's were Custom Brass bodies that he repowered. 100 was the number he did, as best I recall. Custom Brass obviously also had them. Ed Duddy's were big aluminum castings (Alexander, I think). Ed also had E44 and E33 electrics. Sunset had 5 or so versions? including "Old Rivets". Weaver had them, but they (opinion) were not very well detailed. Kohs did a couple or so variations, drop coupler and regular.

Rich (of the faulty memory)

Part 2. Still loud and still high load but I'll call it done, there's less binding but the gearboxes seem to be the source of the racquet. I recall these weren't the quietest models from the factory. I ran the gearboxes with no load and they got a bit warm, I added a lot of grease and even with the ball bearing on the main high speed shaft that goes through all the gearboxes still loud.