487's Plow

I recently purchased, second hand, an Accucraft electric powered K-36. The previous owner had renumbered it as 487 (a number not offered by Accucraft) and along with it, I got an Accucraft plow which had never been mounted on the engine. I was getting ready to mount the plow on the engine but it didn't look quite right to me. It was similar but not the same as 487's plow. After examining many photo's, I realized that the shroud on the top was elongated as compared to the real one.

I don't know what, if anything gets removed from the front of the prototype in order to mount the plow (is the pilot beam still under there?) but it appears that Accucraft, in an effort to be able to mount the plow over the pilot beam, cut lever, etc., without removing them, had to mount the plow a good two scale feet (or so) farther forward than shoud be and then extended the top shround so that it still reaches all the way back to the smokebox door, as on the prototype.

Now I'm not sure if I want to mount it on the engine or not. I don't know if the inaccuracy is going to bother me and I really don't want to modify the model (at least not irreversibly). I've also only found one or two pictures of the 487 without a plow. How often and when was the 487 without one?

What say you? Should I mount the plow as is or not?

Jeff





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/11/2015 11:36PM by crackerjackhoghead.