Take apart

As with many model, just pull the sides apart with your nails and you can pull the bottom out. Slide the housing forward to release it completely from the chassis. Disconnect the plug of the lighting in the front and put the housing aside.

Remove the sticky tape

Remove the tape and save it on a piece of sticker backing. The plastic tape doesn’t really stick on well a second time, so it’s better to use new tape, but the soft tape, that’s on the side of the motor, can be re-used with a trick.

Remove screws PCB board

If your model has a DCC plug, remove the screw on each side, so the board is loose. They might be hidden under the tape.

Unclip bottom

On each side, there are two clips which should be unclipped, then the bottom can be pulled off. The bogies can just be pulled out, they are not connected with any wire.

Remove frame clips

The two parts that make the frame are held together with five clips. Carefully pry those clips of the frame. (Don’t let the picture confuse you. You already should have the bottom removed, as in step 4)

Now desolder all wires on the chassis and put the PCB (board with electronics) with wires aside. Make sure you know where the wires to the motor go on the PCB. I just cut them off from the motor, so they were still visible on the PCB.

Remove motor

Disconnect motor from drive shafts by just pulling the drive shaft out of the black plastic outer ends on the motor.

Remove flywheels with cardan

Using two large screwdrivers, counter twist them to pry off the flywheels (including plastic cardan piece). There is a big risk you’ll damage the original motor, but that has to be seen as necessary collateral damage to reach our goal of upgrading the model.

For more valuable tips how to remove a worm, gear or flywheel, click here.

Solder wires

On the contact side of the motor you’ll see a small + next to one contact. Needless to say, this is the Plus, of course. Solder a red wire (The Tramfabriek has got great wires!) to that contact. Solder a black wire to the other contact. The motor should be pre-fitted correctly by the Tramfabriek, i.e. the red wire will be on the right side of the direction of travel, when going forward. When the wires are fitted, press the motor until the end stop in the casing.

Brass adapters in flywheel

To change the diameter of the flywheel from 1.5 mm to 1.0 mm, the supplied brass adapter have to be fitted. If they slide in, you’ll have to glue them (keep the inside clean!). If they are too tight to push in, see next step.

Hammer adapter in flywheel

The picture will give you an idea how to sort out this step.

Fit flywheels

Fit the flywheels on the new motor. Check in the chassis for the right amount of spacing on each side. If they spin freely on the motor shaft, glue them using Loctite glue or similar.

Assemble chassis

Fit the two chassis parts together again, hook the clips back on and solder the wires: two wires of the motor will replace the old ones, then two wires go to the front of the chassis, two to the back.

Make tape sticky again or use new tape

I use a glue roller to make the felt-like tape sticky again, to put it back on the side of the model. It should overlap the motor casing and metal chassis.

You can also use new isolation tape or, what I prefer, quality masking tape. The glue on that tape holds much longer and doesn’t become so messy as isolation tape.

This motor upgrade kit can very well be converted to DCC. Check the digital setting page, for many decoders, to get the best driving experience.

Deze motor upgrade kit kan ook aangestuurd worden door DCC. Kijk op de digitale instellingen pagina voor de CV instellingen voor de grote decodermerken, om de beste rijervaring te hebben.