This is a clip I made for the RS 2 and posted on YouTube:
Please comment. Thanks.
Installing LocoFi in a KATO ALCO RS2-Great Northern #217 37-2302
The instruction sheet included says that to remove the body shell, one has to remove the hand rails (so that it is easier to squeeze the shell without breaking the hand rails) and squeeze the body shell and pull it out from the frame. In some of the KATO locos this is true but in this case, it is not. It in fact, will break the tabs, if it is done this way! The tabs need to be forced outwards from the frame by inserting a thin metal piece of some sort from the bottom, next to the trucks.
Once the shell is out, remove the light board, front weight and front light pipe as below. These will go to the spares box for safe keeping as we need to make some space for LocoFi.
The LocoFi unit will sit nicely above the motor in the middle of the engine compartment but, the clearance is just a couple of mm short due to the motor height and the shell will not close properly. Hence, I had to move it all the way to the front. That makes for the removal of the parts mentioned earlier.
I also use “HandiTak” to hold things in place rather than any glue, so that I can return the loco to the original condition, if needed later. Never know when and if I would want to sell one of these!
The KATO motor has no wires. Instead, they use thin, flat, springy, Phosphor-Bronze strips from the light board to the motor brush holders. If they do not have the springiness, the contact near the brush holder will be loose. To avoid this, I use a strip of plastic (like from and old credit card), make two holes and bring the PB strips up through them and solder the wires to them. The supply wires are also under the yellow stuff and are soldered at the bottom near the pickups, as below. They are all under the yellow stuff in the pictures below.
Front light: I used one of those tiny LEDs (SMD type that comes with leads). As I had to push the LF board all the way to the front, there was not enough space to use an LED from the kit. I have packed around it with the yellow goop so that it can be centered within the hole. I punched a piece of plastic to put over it to act like a lens (not seen here).
Rear Light: This was no problem as it is seen below. The original light pipe works here.
Speaker: This was somewhat easy as it has enough space above the interior detail in the cab. But due to close fitting between the cab interior part and the protruding section from the engine housing, I had to create a tiny “channel” on the white interior detail to accommodate the wires as below.
The speaker wires in the cab can be seen below:
Completed unit and “spare parts!”
