# Mercedes 170V Railcar



## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

A few years ago I bought an Airfix 1:24 scale kit of a Mercedes 170V Berline. I planned to kitbash it into a track inspection vehicle. I tried all sort of electric motors with simple homemade geraboxes but the thing went too fast everytime I tried to run it. The best was to buy a good gearbox but those were pretty expensive. Eventually the project dissapeared in a box for a few years but the car was lingering in the back of my head.
Recently I remembered a topic on MLS were they used small RC cars as motor unit for small hand cars. Unfortunatly I can't find it back in the forums anymore, so if anyone know what topic I mean and know were to find it, please let me know!!!

Last week I found something that was suitable for this. It's a small RC car. It's without the transmitter so at the moment I think I only use the motor and ' gearbox' and not he RC unit. For I just want the car to make it's rounds on the tracks it does not really need RC. 
If I later want it to operate on RC I think I build in a HobbyEasy 2.4 Ghz set; these are small and cheap and there is enough room for it. But for now, I will be happy enough to see it run without.

The donor:









Wheelbase widht is perfect!









And the bodywork fits very nice as well (You can see the old "chassis" in the back)









Because the lenght of the wheelbase of the toy car was too short I cutted the chassis in half, just in front of the battery compartment. Then I measured the wheelbase and cutted the old chassis from the kit in size. Glued together with superglue and some strips of plastic for extra strenght.
The testfit with the body looks OK. The fronth wheels rest on the kits chassis and are reenforced with plastic strips. You can see the "welding line" just under the seats.










In the front an extra weight is added. The vehicle is very light and get derailed easy, specially with its front wheels (it jumps a bit). So extra weight might prevent this from happening. Perhaps the engineblock will have to leave to make room for more weight (you can't see it anyway).

The wheels came from Bachmann (#92422 Small metal wheels 24.5mm). These are relatively cheap casted wheels. They were just a bit too wide for the metal axle of the toy, but I glued them in place with a mixture of Bison contact glue (for the 'filling') and some drips of CA powerglue. Seems to work OK...
The front axle is the axle that came with the wheels, shortened off with a Dremel. 

And the status at the moment:











The car originally runs on 2 AA cells. However, it runs way more realistic on only 1 AA cel (1,2 volts). It still haves enough power to work it's way up the hill. Since I have room for 2 cells I think I connect them parallel, so it still delivers 1,2 volts but has more milliampère and therefor longer running time and more power.

Here's a little video of the car running on only 1 AA cell (yes, it's holds in a bit just before the bridge, but that did only happen when I shot the video... Normally it runs smoothly on that point). 






BTW: sorry for the unstable camera work, I was sitting on my heels in an uncomfortable position... 

Paul


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Somehow the video did not show in above post... I've tried several times to embed it in the post but it won't show. 


New try. If it don't show here than you can see it on Youtube via this link.


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## Jim Agnew (Jan 2, 2008)

That's neat!


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## Henson (Jan 2, 2008)

I like it, thanks for showing.


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

Very nice, Pualus... You used some great imagination in the model...


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## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

Paul,
I too have a plan for such a rail vehicle with a cheap RC car of the appropriate size someplace on my workbench. Mine will be closer to a rail inspection vehicle used by the Genesee & Wyoming and photos of it are in Scot Lawrence's webpages. I've sourced the model kit and the RC car but was failing at the wheels. Even the ones you used are not quite right for me but I suppose I should get on with it and get the car running first then sweat the details later?
Chas


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## alecescolme (Dec 20, 2010)

Paul, very nice work, looks great! 

Chas, have you looked at Ozark wheels yet? 

Alec.


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## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

Alec, 
Yes I have several sizes of them...none of them are quite right but they come closer to the correct size. These shot were from a year ago and were the initial visual tests. 

& Paul, the video worked for me and that was cool! Thanks for sharing and reigniting some inspiration for me! 

Chas


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## Paulus (May 31, 2008)

Thanks! Glad you all like it! 

@Chas: Thanks! Your model and prototype looks great! Is it gonna get that orange livery? 
The wheels you have will look good when painted and weathered. If you are able to make it in a way you can remove the wheels again easily you can just go on with the model and install other wheels whenever you find the right once. It will be hard I think to find such small railroad wheels. Perhaps you can try 0 scale wheels (tinplate) that are more in the right size? It almost looks the prototype wheels are some sort of car rims, converted to track wheels.


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## wchasr (Jan 2, 2008)

Paul,
I think that those are stock speeder wheels of the era. looking at some other shots of the coupe you get a better idea that they are not converted car wheels. They are stamped steel though. 

G&W non revenue vehicle look about half way down this roster photos page for other shots. our own Scotty Lawrence (scottychaos) hosts this site so I hope he doesn't mind the link? I've purchased a set of each of the Ozark miniatures wheels that match and all are too small. Maybe some O-scale wheels would fit the bill? As you said though, get it running first however.

Chas


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