The Athearn BB drive shafts are thicker, while the newer Athearn RTR/Genesis drive shafts are hexegonal and are much thinner.
Are the older drive shafts what’s causing the noise? And is it worth the $$$ to upgrade into a Mashima/athearn genesis motor and newer drive shafts?
Charles
I don’t think the drive shafts cause much noise. Most of the noise is from the motor. You can get some noise from the worm gears and truck towers if there is too much slop. I’ve used kadee and NWSL washers to tighten up the tolerances in my blue box locomotives. It quieted them down a little, but the biggest gain was a large reduction in current draw.
If you want to change the motor, I would consider a Kato motor with flywheels. Part number 956010 or 956030. I did two blue boxes with the 956030, and mounted it on an A-line motor mount with silicone. I also had to get the athearn rtr hex driveshafts and the worm adapter.
They would probably contribute something to the “Athearn Growl”.
Charles,That BB noise is caused by several things and the biggest is the drive to shell noise.The shell acts as a speaker. Also high speed running adds to the din.
My solution is I add 5 or 6 stick on weights to the inside top of the shell and that cuts the noise down by at least 70%. Those that don’t believe that give it a test.
The newer RTR is much quieter and smoother.
Not to be to brutal while the BB drive was bullet proof and will last decades it lacked in many areas and had above standard voltage/amp drawl which seem to decrease after years of use…