# 785 coal loader



## alaft61ri (Oct 11, 2019)

I recently bought a 785 coal loader it works but backwards when pushing the green button the clam shell stays closed i am looking for the wiring digram for inside were motor is. Portland has it but its for the dc motor. Thanks Al


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## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

Al, I looked for your wire diagram, but all I found was for the DC motor.

Good luck.


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## T-Man (May 16, 2008)

Will the 752 be the same?
You could draw out what you have and start from there.


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

That diagram is for the old two button 752, not the updated three button 752A which would be the same as a 785. Unfortunately these diagrams do not show the internal wiring, just the external connections.
When I get home on Tuesday I will try to take a picture of a 758 internal wiring connections unless someone else beats me to it.


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## alaft61ri (Oct 11, 2019)

Ok thanks no rush it weired there is nothing on it i keep putting different ways of wording it.


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

Al, I located my two 752's, they are not the three button 752A's, and my MTH repro. Unfortunately I have not located the 785. Hopefully someone else has a 785 they can photograph.


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## alaft61ri (Oct 11, 2019)

Ok thanks i kept switching wires no i just use it like it is and remember red is down. And green is up. Lol thanks al


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## AF-Doc' (Dec 21, 2013)

Greetings All,
I have some information on the 785 loader from one that I re-furbished. I added several rice lights with 100 ohm resistors for lighting in the lower area. I added a limit switch that is tripped by the inner cart pulley when the cart is all the way up. The switch will break the red wire on the field coil to stop only the motor not the bucket coil. This switch turns on a rice light as well that is mounted on the underside of the roof for indication purposes

I have attached several pictures including a wiring diagram of the complete loader. I hope it can help. Pictures of the motor assembly are hard to take due to it location. For wiring it, looking down from the roof the Red " up " wire goes on the left side of the field coil the Green " down " wire on the right side of the field coil and the top Back wire from the field coil center tap goes to the left side of the motor coil and the right side of the motor coil goes back to the transformer base post.

On my layout I have installed a separate 14 vac transformer for operation of the loader and area lighting.

I hope this information helps out.
Doc'


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## alaft61ri (Oct 11, 2019)

Wow thats alot of work looks great thankyou.
Al


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## AF-Doc' (Dec 21, 2013)

Your always welcome Al. I hope it is helpful.
Doc'


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

Hi Doc. Now you have a one of a kind coal loader for the layout. How is the DCC Hudson doing?


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## AF-Doc' (Dec 21, 2013)

Greetings Tom,
I agree it is a nice loader although the addition of the limit switch stopped all the lift motor overdrive. It does work well. The first Hudson is working great and the vast majority of the second one is finished although it still needs the castings stripped and repainted. I need to find another decal source as I have not been able to get through to Dave at LBR Enterprises for over a year. I have for the moment set aside the Hudson project till the winter arrives and I have to stay inside again.

I have done some work with a DCC conversion for a Rivarossi HO New York Central Streamliner with the passenger cars done in two tone gray. Runs good and the Digitrax sound if nice.

I have also started looking for a dual track vertical lift bridge in HO. I saw a real one cycle and wow it was something to behold. Ooops here come another project maybe. So far no kits so most have said kits bashing or scratch built. Still thinking about it.

I just started back on the site as things here have settled a little now, you know...Life is what happens when your busy planning other things.

New things on your side of the world? Hope all with you and family is good and all are safe and well.

Thanks for the hello.
Doc


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

Doc, Port Lines Hobbies has a lot of Gilbert replacement decals and dry transfers in stock. A place called Clover House sells more S scale decals and dry transfers than I could bear to look at.
I think I have less initiative for projects than you do. I mostly just buy new Lionel S gauge Legacy engines when I see one I like and a few cars. My big project was modifying all the AM passenger cars (48 of them) to close couple. They now look far more realistic on the layout. I also added diaphragms to my full scale length AM Lightweight passenger cars, it is surprising how much better a string of them now looks.
We are fine here by the beach in SoCal. Hottest day at the house so far this summer has been 75. Like you, not doing too much indoors.
Thinking about that motorized lift bridge, I wonder if two could be stacked so there could be HO on the lower deck and S gauge on the upper. Now that sounds like a lot of work!


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## AF-Doc' (Dec 21, 2013)

Tom, Thanks for the Clover House reference and yep there are a lot of dry transfers to look thru. I bet your passenger car look great with the diaphragms and close coupling, 48 now there is a dedication. Was there a lot of the Lightweights cars as well?
All go now here in SC although we have reached 98 degrees to date. Looking forward to fall again.
Not sure of the Stacked Vertical Lift Bridge but hey you never know...it would look great though and yes lots of work including track re-routing.
Maybe I'll just finish up the Hudson and go from there.
Doc


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## AF-Doc' (Dec 21, 2013)

Tom, there is a thread in the HO section with comments on the Lift Bridge. Some good info and ideas too.


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

I will check out the lift bridge posts. I only have one set of five full scale AM lightweights. They were made early in AM history, not common and have been out of production for over three decades. The full scale AM passenger cars, lightweight or heavyweights need a minimum of 27"R track and turnouts. Here are two pictures after the mods. First are the 80' lightweights with close coupling and the added diaphragms. Second are the heavyweights close coupled, an 80' sleeper on the left, a 70' coach on the right. I removed 5/8" from the gap between the cars. With 3/4" removed they will rub and derail on 30"R curves.


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## AF-Doc' (Dec 21, 2013)

Very nice work Tom, The lightweights with the close coupling and diaphragms look so real. Do the diaphragms connect? The heavyweights look awesome as well and I bet some time and effort was needed to find that 5/8 was the number. Keeping it close at 1/8 must have been a hair puller. Your efforts really did pay off. I bet they look good running the rails as well.

I have 4 of Rivarossi's lighted HO heavy weights that would benefit from the same efforts that you have done with yours although I have not started that project as of yet, it still would be a nice touch.

The Rivarossi New Your Central would be another train for that work too as well as a paint job to make them all match up.

In the pictures the Hudson is still waiting in the Q. The pilot coupling was a modification I found on Karl's site years ago and after lots of tweaking it works quite well. Thanks Karl.

Doc


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

Horn/hook couplers, I sure do not miss them!. My brother has all the HO, I gave him all mine. His collection is mostly Gilbert HO including many of the rare late production items. I am envious that your passenger cars have people in them but I am not going there.
What I did on the AM passenger cars was pretty easy once I got the length of the coupler arm figured out, it just required drilling a new mounting hole in the correct spot and cutting off the excess. The coupler arms are a separate piece from the truck, they just screw on.
The only way to shorten the gap on the Rivarossi cars is likely to be with body mount couplers. That will require probably a minimum 22" curve radius. I once tried body mounts on some old Athearn passenger cars but they would not work on the 18" track radius the layout used. My cars are used on 30"R track which is 22"R in HO. On my S gauge cars body mounts would work on the 70' cars but not on the 80' cars. The 80' cars would need at least 36"R unless the mounts were modified, again, way too much work. The easements on my layout are only 6" long, just enough to stop the engines from lurching when entering a curve. If it had 18" easements (slightly longer than the lenth of the 80' cars) they would work on 33"R curves.
The diaphragms were not too hard to install. I was looking at the ends of the passenger cars and concluded the Full length lightweights had an end almost the same as the AM Budd cars. The Budd cars have separately attached diaphragms from the factory. I called Ron and had him send me a batch of Budd car diaphragms. It required cutting off all the mounting pins and tabs with the Dremel and a small cutting disc then gluing the diaphragms to the car ends. They are non-operational so they do not connect together.
I like the NYC cars, it would be worth the effort to shorten the gap and install some nice HO retrofit diaphragms.
I am not really a fan of that pilot mounted coupler, Carl did it so he could double head Gilbert steamers. I think I would look at using the much smaller AM solid coupler that mates with a standard knuckle coupler. I bought a few so I could couple some FA and FB units closer together without the mounting accuracy needed for a scale coupler.


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## AF-Doc' (Dec 21, 2013)

I'm going to look for some new couplers and diaphragms for the NYC cars and maybe the couplers will require car mounts. All of my HO track is of 22 and 24" curves so I have some wiggle room there. A much later project for sure.

Tom I agree with your view about the Hudson pilot mounted coupler as the aspect ratio is way off. It looks like a thumb sticking out of an orange for lack of better words. I guess the coupler on the tender and rolling stock is close but on the original pilot assembly it surely is not.










Like Carl I want to double head the two converted 322's for consist running and I tried a Gilbert solid and pike master coupler with little success. The second engine's pilot would always derail in curves due to the lack of swing. The coupler on the front engine tender did not have the range of motion needed.

When I made the front tender coupler a pivot type it would derail the rear tender truck in the curves. The original Gilbert track that I laid down might have not been the best choice as the curve radius is a bit tight. I wish I knew then what I know now.........

Still open to any and all ideas. I went to AM's site and looked at the couplers and the dummy scale passenger ones might be a much better option. Some are on the way to try out. Thanks for the tip.

Doc


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## mopac (Feb 24, 2011)

Doc, please let us know if you come up with a way to double head that looks ok
and works with no problems. I too have wanted to double head. Not sure why Gilbert 
did not see that and had a better coupler on the front. They did it on their diesels.
You might look at the diesels and see what is needed on the steamers. Alot more swing
I am sure.


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## AmFlyer (Mar 16, 2012)

Doc, I want to be sure you are looking at all the AM possibilities. AM makes the standard Gilbert style KC and they are available in several mounting configurations depending on use (passenger car, diesel, steam engine tender.) They make a compatible, but smaller fixed coupler that works well connecting A and B units, and finally they make the fixed scale couplers for passenger cars.
I have a lot of the scale couplers because that was my original plan for close coupling the passenger cars. It was a complete failure for more than one reason I will not go into here. The fixed KC's are nice because they are smaller than the KC's, about half the thickness but still couple to a standard KC.
Here are two pictures, a Diesel KC with built in spring, a fixed KC and then the fixed scale coupler.


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## AF-Doc' (Dec 21, 2013)

The AM couplers might add to the aspect ratio I will give it a try. For now I'm inclined to try Carl's mod as it is already finished. That being said the AM couplers with the same layout might look better and work as well. Time and tweaking will tell the tail. Diesels are being looked at....News at 11 or video of the wreck to come. Thanks for the comment.
Doc


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