I recently acquired an Athearn F7A HiF at a garage sale, (it is part of a set and I only paid $5 for it) the locomotive is in fairly good shape, but needs a few parts. Namely the wheels and drive bands. I looked on Athearn’s site, but can’t find them. Does Athearn still sell these parts, or are there any after market alternatives available? I’d call and ask, but at the time of this posting they’re closed.
Thank you in advance.
pm me .
The Athearn rubber band drive is called Hi-F, not HiFi.
I went over to e-bay and entered “Athearn Hi-F” and turned up a few locos for sale. Seems $30 is typical. Back in the day, they were $5 and $6. Which would be $41.95 and $50.34 today.
FWIW.
Ed
How does the motor run? These are old locomotives and after replacing some parts you may find that you still don’t have a working engine.
I’ve converted a couple of these old rubber band models to sound dummies to run in consists. Seemed like the best thing to do with them.
the first one i got in 58 was in a yellow box (still have it and box) were simply labled powered .
I haven’t tested the motor yet, but it looks like its in good condition, including the wiring. I forgot to mention in my first post that I do have the original wheels, but they’re corroded and I’m not sure if and how they can be cleaned. That’s why I was wondering if there are any replacements available.
You might check NWSL for wheels
If I remember correctly, the Hi-F wheelsets were made up of the usual scale 40" diameter wheels, but had stub axles plugged into the outer ends of the plastic drive barrels between them, over which you looped the “drive belts,” which were, of course, rubber bands. I could be wrong (I often am in my old age), as I can’t remember how the power was carried up from the rails to the motor. However, in any case, Northwest Short Line sells HO 40" wheelsets for Diesels. If they’re the same as the O scale wheelsets I buy from them, the axle on one end is necked to go into a plastic insulator, though I don’t know if they make HO un-insulated sets–in case the wheels are just plugged into the ends of the drive drums. Pull 'em apart and see. I do remember those Hi-F locos ran very smoothly, if a bit speedy. (Somebody made a replacement motor with reduction gears for the hefty shafts on each end of it.) Good luck!
Deano
I got an old Athearn Budd RDC car with the rubber band drive and replaced the motor. I then used RC model aircraft fuel line to connect the two motor shafts to the wheel assemblies shafts at each end- the result being much slower speed at low power and smoother speed increases as I applied more power. I recall cleaning and polishing the existing wheels with mothers wheel polish on my bench top drill press which enhanced the current flow. Don’t spend a lot-just a few bucks for the new motor and the fuel line.
Cedarwoodron
i have four or five of the wheelsets laying around … i can send them to you if need be … they look like regular sets except for the center part, it quite a bit larger, like a non-conductive barrel of sorts …
i know that i don’t have any of the bands, and you would be better off picking up new ones, because they do dry out some what
That would have been Pittman. The gear reduction was 4:1. The shafts did not use the vertical shaft supports, and the supports had to be cut off. The new shaft was 1/8" diameter. The overall reduction was thus 2:1, compared to the original motor (only).
I don’t have my rubber band drive F handy, but I would think the original had a “gear” reduction around 6:1. If so, the Pittman design would have give 12:1, comparing nicely to current ratios.
If you never stopped the train, it would be hard to beat a set of 4-6 rubber band F’s for smooth and quiet operation at around 40 smph. I suspect Pittman equipped power would have been quite a bit noisier because of the gears.
Ed
UPDATE Good news! I’ve successfully tested the motor and it seems to work good.[:D]
Hi everybody. Just wanted to let you know that I got the F7 running, (runs good by the way) and that the wheels weren’t as bad as I thought. Believe it or not, I figured out a way to refurbish them, and now they’re like new. For anyone else who may need help with this problem, I took them apart and put them in a sonic jewelry cleaner filled with a mix of water and Dawn dish liquid. Then, after rinsing them and letting them dry for a few days I polished them with a fine emery board and put it all back together. I also found new drive bands for it, as the originals were long gone. I believe it was someone at Athearn who recommended Goody hair rubber bands for things like small pig-tails, and they’re just the right size. It’s amazing the bargins you can find at a yard sale. Thank you everyone for your tips and suggestions.
glad that you got it running 
That’s good to hear. I have great fondness for those old things, and it’s great to hear that one (or more) are still slithering around a layout.
Ed
Glad to hear you got it running!
I fixed up a couple of these a while back. I bought multisize packs of the Goody rubber and “ouchless” bands experiemented a couple times until I got a set with the right tension and I was good to go.
Another thing to try for rusty parts is plain old vinegar. Sometimes they will be so pitted that you have to file/polish, etc, but often the result is a ready-to-go surface after an application of vinegar (gentle rubbing with a cloth or cotton swab) and a rinse with tap water. I’ve even used it on an old painted metal boxcar with white corrosion (not zinc rot) and I was able to remove the corrosion and preserve virtually all the paint!
Me, too, Ed! My first HO loco was an Athearn Hi-F F7A. I’d been planning to build a model railroad with “scale-ized” American Flyer S gauge equipment. Fell in love with a John English HObbyline (remember them?) Alco F dummy my brother had, discovered Flyer was selling a Baldwin Switcher, with the same AAR trucks, so I ordered one at the toy store where I’d been picking up Flyer stuff for several years. Had a fun time that summer, scaling up the HO dummy to 3/16"=1’, using wood, card (for the radiator shutters) and screen for Western Union message tape application, etc. More than six months went by and the local toy shop didn’t have the Flyer loco yet, and was visiting my cousin, who worked at a local hobby shop, where they had an ABA set pulling a train around their display track in the window (it had the Weston nude woman standing under a tree with the little pile of clothes next to her, no less) and I was hooked. As I was working as a messenger for “Cowboy’s Underwear,” as my brother called it, I had a few bucks and bought the Hi-F unit on the spot. (What were they–$5.95?) That was 62 years ago, and I’m still hooked on railroad modeling. Says sosmething about our hobby, doesn’t it?
Enjoy!
Deano
The Athearn catalog for 1957 says $6.95. Which is $63.93 today. If I were to leave out nostalgia, I’d keep saving my money until I had $300, and get one of today’s beautiful sound equipped models.
Would anyone here pay $63.93 for a new-in-the-box Athearn rubber-band F?
That would be an F without handrails, windows, lights, sound, DCC…
I WILL point out that the incorrectly shaped Athearn F was shaped much better than the Varney F. I’ve got one of THOSE in a box, and I WOULD sell it to my worst enemy.
Ed
I am refurbishing a half dozen of these old HiF drives right now. So far three have turned out as good as could be hoped for. A third one seems to have a bad motor (motor runs OK with no load, but loads down when the trucks are driven, and there doesn’t seem to be any binding). One thing I have noticed is that quie a few of the axles (actually the large diameter plastic pieces between the wheels) are cracked the length of the piece (much like the old P2K Geep axle gears split). I bought a large supply of genuine Athearn drive belts (aka rubber bands) a few years ago, and they seem to be doing the job OK. Those corroded wheels do seem to clean up pretty well (as you mention).
I have found two variations in the drive. One uses a rubber sleeve to couple the motor armature to the “drive axle” (the thing that drives the belts). The other drive has the “universal socket” type connector between the motor and the drive rod. Even though these models are light years behind current stat-of-the-art, they do bring back some good memories.
It’s funny that you should say that, because shortly after I got this one working, I found a matching A and B set (UP) in working order for $25, and both are powered. They helped me fine tune the first one so it would run smoother. They’er good pullers too. I put them to work pulling six UP passenger cars and they can move them with ease.