I have an old Athearn F7-A that I am trying to determine the age of and find a parts list of. The motor is opem frame, black and it does not have flywheels. There is two small removable weights that set on the underframe. The sideframes are metal, the worm housing is two piece and has a round bearing that fits in a hole in the back part of the housing. I have a parts sheet but it is on the model that had flywheels and it shows a different style of trucks. We are trying to restore the unit for my grandson and are missing the parts to connect the motor to the power trucks. Any help will be greatly appreciated.
I have looked at all of these already in fact I have an original of the oldest one. Instead of the super weight we have two small weights that go at the end of the motors and hook on the ends of the motor sump. The wheel sets are some what different since they have metal sideframes. Different worm housings. It looks like PN’s 90105 and 90106 might be what I need. Now it I can find a couple sets of those we might be back in operations.
I’m 67 and I can’t remember when Athearn’s F7 wasn’t around…Look at today’s shell and its the same one you bought in the 50s minus the windshield glass…
As a added old age oops! Athearn should have the metal power contact strip in stock…You will need to contact Athearn by e-Mail or better still by phone.
Age of an Athearn blue box F7A can be anywhere from maybe 10 or so years to upwards of 45 to 50 years? One of the give aways is the side frames of the wheel set trucks. The F7A’s made during the 1960’s thru what, into the early 1980’s had metal truck side frames, then Athearn tooled up some very nice accurate Blomberg B side frames and molded them in plastic and supplied blue box diesels with them in the 1980’s and going forward.
I am not sure when exactly that Athearn stopped producing he blue box F7A kits; end of the 1990’s or perhaps a even a few years into the 2000’s. Of course they still offer the RTR version using the same shell - sows ear made into a “silk purse” kind of for those who don’t mind the 1950’s tooling.
Since Athearn still manufactures RTR versions of the F7A, there should still be parts availalbe for them, depending on whether they replicate the type of parts used in the blue box version or not.
I took some pictures. How do you post them here? We moved to the local area in 1974. Don’t remember if we brought it with us or not. When we moved here there was a magazine shop that handled some model items.
Larry I have two Athearns from the mid or so 50s. Don’t remember when I bought them but I was still in high school and I graduated in 56 so maybe 54, girls overpowered my trains in 55. My model railroading was limited from 1955 until the early 60s. I was allowed to “play” with my trains after the second kid in 62, the first kid was a girl.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
If Athearn doesn’t stock the parts for it anymore, you should be able to find a more modern one on ebay and then just switch the shells. (the newer one is going to run better anyway).
Your description is of the geared drive. That is how it is referred to on hoseeker. It will generally run fine, unless one of the gears is broken. Generally the parts are interchangable and there are a number of available parts on eBay and swap meets. The suggestion to upgrade the drive is good. There are basically two F7A shell variants. The primary difference is in the coupler areas. it is an easy job to make an early shell work with a later drive.
