Does anyone know where I can get hard to find Athearn parts for a DD40? Tried LHS and they referred me over to Athearn but they don’t carry a lot of these old parts. If anyone knows where I can get them or has these parts for sale: worm housing short (42008), light bracket (40050), motor connector clip dual (40041), plastic ball coupling (90108). Any help would be appreciated! Thanks
At the moment, there’s only one immediate place I can find for the old style worm assembly:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ATHEARN-PARTS-ATH42000-PA-B-1-DD40-WORM-ASSY-2-PIECE-/220632263226?pt=Model_RR_Trains
This guy’s items are overpriced, but at least he has the part. It looks like he’s only selling the entire assembly. You can also look around at train shows for the part or an entire diesel to use as parts (I managed to get an old F7 for about $10 to get the parts for a DD40 project).
If you can’t find a light bracket, then making one out of brass sheet is pretty simple. To mount it, I would recommend drilling a hole in the frame and tapping a screw to mount it.
The motor connector clip is pretty unreliable in the DD40. I would suggest using wire instead, but then you’ll still need a bracket for the headlight. Again, this can be made easily out of thin brass sheet.
A Line makes Athearn style universals that will work. The hole for the shaft is too small to fit the Athearn motor, but it can be drilled out to fit easily enough.
I thought of just using some conductor metal for the light and using wire for the clip…sounds liike you read my mind. I’ll check out Ebay for the worm housing. I wonder if those universal driveline kits from Micromark and others would also work? Thanks!
The Micro-Mark universals will work, but again, you’ll have to drill out the openings a little for the Athearn motors.