One of my Genesis SD70MACs is on the fritz[#dots]. It wont stay on the rails even though all the wheels are in guage. Ive located the problem, where the axle goes into the truck frame its not lined up properly and when it slides out, it sticks there and derails. Now, i can realign the truck frame and get the axle back in but as soon as it goes around a turn it pops back out. These arent tight turns either (36").
any suggestions?
hello joe…i had one of my locos playing up and i pulled it to pieces and found nothing wrong…i pulled another to pieces to compare and i could find no difference so when i put them back together no problems…i would suggest you check each piece to see if anything is bent and assemble it back together very carefully…i have 17 athearn dash 9’s and 3 or 4 of them derail for no reason anywhere…too busy to look at them at the moment…
…sometimes i feel i am the only csx modeller in australia
I feel like the only CSX modeler in south texas, hehe. OK, im gonna try that tommorrow, it runs backwards fine for some reason so i could always consist it with the other one when i get it back. rather have both work. anyway, ill try that, thanks
-Joe
I bought two of the units in question and both had bad trucks. Icalled Athearn and explained the problem. I received two sets of trucks within 10 days. Never could figure out the problem, don’t know how many times I disassembled those trucks for a look see. Chalk it up to poor manufacturing and Iwill not purchase another Genesis Line locomotive again. Conisidering I have over a hundred Blue Box Kit locomotives and had no problems with any of them, they just keep on running!!
I had the same problem with the SD70. Check your trackwork for dips or rises, especially on curves. My SD70 continually derailed on one particular curve, and I eventually traced the problem to a very slight dip in the outer rail. After I shimmed that spot level, the loco runs excellently. The trucks won’t swivel around anything tighter than a 22 inch radius, by the way, without binding and derailing, so if any of you have that situation on your layout, you can’t run these larger Genesis models. Athearn Genesis is probably not the only brand that has this problem, either – some of these new models are getting to be so long that we will need minimum 30 inch radius curves pretty soon if the prototypes keep getting longer.
My Genesis SD70 does that to. The front truck seems to come off on every 22" curve. The loco doesn’t fall off the track, it keeps going.
My Genesis BNSF (Better Newer Santa Fe) SD75 climbs off the track for no reason that i can find, the trucks are in gauge etc but it still does it ???, my P2K SD60’s don’t do it so i now buy P2K’s problem solved
Get a small sheet of glass put the loco on it and make sure all the wheels touch the glass if they don’y try to bend the bronze contact on the sideframes so they are do touch the glass.
That’s why I never did like Athearn in the first place…Too many problems.
well its not the radius, these are 36" curves im talking about, ill try putting it on glass, but how exactly would i bend the contacts to result in moving the axle down?
Athearns problems (truck problem) are alot easier to fix then painting the loco since katos paint jobs suck.
You’ve probably already done this, but “carefully check” for bent axles. Remove them and roll each one on the track individually with you looking down directly overhead. If an axle is bent you’ll notice that the wheels seem to “wobble” slightly. My wife’s cousin had this problems with one of his Genesis Macs. Another friend of mine diagnosed the problem immedietly.
Hope this helps!