The older Lima models, with the 'pancake' motors, are not very good runners. Over the years various manufacturers have made replacement motors for the old Lima motors. One of these manufacturers is ModelTorque from Australia. This page shows what it takes to repower a Lima model (in this case the DSB MZ 1402) with a ModelTorque Lima Re-Motor kit.

This picture shows the Lima model and the re-motor kit. They are placed on top of the very clear instructions which can be downloaded from the ModelTorque website.

The shell has been removed, by pulling out the "buffers". The old pancake motor is now visible. This model shows the 'classic' style of the old Lima models. A pancake motor is powering one truck, the other truck is used for electric pickup. In the middle of the frame is a big piece of cast iron mounted to give the model some weight.

This model has been fitted with a DCC decoder (Lenz LE1025), which is visible on the right.

The pancake motor is removed from the frame, this can be done by unscrewing the two Phillips screws which mount the truck sides to the motor frame.

In the front the new motor and little bag with some other parts (gears and washers).

The rotor and the magnet has been removed.

The instructions put a lot of emphasis on making the gear train run as good as possible. In this picture the gears on the right have been removed and are cleaned. Before they are put back the gear mounts are lubricated (Labelle 108).

The ModelTorque gear/bearing shaft has been mounted. Make sure that after placing it the gears run smooth. It took me a couple of attempts to get this right.

The new ModelTorque motor is mounted. This motor has almost no friction so when you push the whole assembly it should run smoothly.

Every thing is in place now. Time for a test run.

Conclusion:
The new motor has better slow speed performance but the whole gear/motor assembly is still very noisy. The overall running performance is better but because one of the weakest parts of the pancake motor is still there (gear train) it doesn't run as well as for example a SB-Modelbau replacement motor.