Posted by: fnrobinson Sep 8 2008, 05:39 PM
I was most impressed with Accucraft’s L&B bogie brake van and bought a data only version soon after it was introduced.
Unlike the four-wheeled W&L van, the roof is removable so I fitted internal lights. I use rechargeable battery powered led lighting for my goods brake vans, except the W&L one which has a GRS lamp with button cells.
As I found the roof a little tedious to replace I decided to fix the battery inside the van and fit an on/off switch and charging socket.
I wanted the lights to shine through the ducket windows, so out with the El Cheapo Dremil copy and hack a couple of rectangular(ish) holes in the van sides. I also drilled out a GRS whitemetal loco/tail lamp and fitted a red led to it. I then drilled two holes for the led leads above a lamp iron on the back of the van and used these and a dab of glue to fix the lamp on the lamp iron.
I used adhesive backed copper tape to mount the two yellow leds, each high up pointing through the opposite hole into the ducket, and also electrically connect them and the tail light. They connect with the wires in the adjacent compartment containing the battery via a 120 ohm limiting resistor. The current draw is only around 20mA so the battery lasts for ages before needing a recharge, unless you forget to switch off after a running session.
It’s a good idea to test before you fix the roof back on. Mine worked o.k. here’s a shot with it all back together.
As with my W&L van, to improve running on my indifferently laid LGB track, especially the radius 3 pointwork with its less than perfect frogs and check rails, I swapped the wheels for LGB ones with their larger flanges. Unlike the W&L van, the LGB axles for this van needed to be shortened by around 3mm or so and the bosses on the wheel centres reduced to fit between the axleboxes. The picture shows temporary plastic wheels, when removing and replacing spoked metal LGB wheels from their axles in order to adjust them, take great care not to apply too much pressure to the tyres and consequently break the spokes. No prizes for guessing how I found out!
The Accucraft L&B wheels are rather smaller than their LGB replacements, so some adjustment to the coupling height was needed.
If you look at the bar between the coupling and centre bolster you will see where I bent the metal to suit. Accucraft supply two spare bars with the van in order to cope with two alternate coupling heights. I took advantage of this and modified two of them to take LGB hook and loop couplings as shown. The couplings are affixed by a screw, spring washer and nut. The two bars with the Accucraft chopper couplings still attached also needed bending a little to cope with the larger diameter LGB wheels. Sometimes I run with one of each type of coupling to make a useful converter wagon when visiting other lines with Accucraft stock. As the bar fixes to the bolster with two small screws it’s a simple matter to change them over.
Here’s the finished article complete with LGB vacuum brake pipes (just out of sight) and custom water slide transfers from Chris Moxham (member STOP on the old forum).
