Atlas HH660 - illuminated number boards?

I purchased an Atlas Silver Series HH660 when they first came out. That appears to be March of 2009. Of course I bought it without a decoder because I thought "Oh, no big deal, I can put a decoder in anytime." Here we are 11 years later and is it now being removed from the box! 

I put it on the test track using DC to see how it will run. Of course it ran well, as expected with an Atlas locomotive. Cool. Now it's time to remove the shell and pop in a decoder. Shell removal was quick and easy. 

The factory Atlas board has an 8 pin socket for DCC. Great. I selected a NCE D13SRP decoder and installed it. Gave it another test run and everything worked perfectly. Everything looked like it would fit, so I carefully used Kapton tape to snug the decoder into position. I put on the shell. Nope! Too tall. I went back to the decoder inventory and pulled out a D15SRP. Nope, too tall again. 

Change of plans. I will pull out the factory board. I found a TCS M1 decoder in my box of decoders and opted to use that for the install. Of course I now need to plan on squeezing resistors into the package as well. That shouldn't be an issue. 

Once I pulled the light board and reviewed how I would do the install, I noticed something about the number boards They look as though they were made to be illuminated. Hmmm. I grabbed an LED key chain light and sure enough, they are designed to be illuminated. 

However, that means my two function decoder isn't going to work out well. And more importantly, while the number boards have the capability of being lit, it will require milling of the weight so I can get SMD LEDs installed. Atlas put a notch in the weight, but only enough to accommodate the thickness of the number board plastic.

So now my project has stalled. Waiting for me to determine whether I want lit number boards or not. It may be possible to squeeze a small SMD above the number board and light it from the top. I'll have to think on that one. Given the fact that it will not be operating in a low light situation, I will most likely take the easy way out and not light them. ...of course the easiest would have been to have a plug and play decoder work. 

Another quick and easy project screeching to a halt. If any more issues come up as a result of the installation, I will post an update.