I think my Athearn Genesis SD70’s trucks are warped. When it goes through a curve or a turnout the wheels come off of the rails.
My question is, Where can I get replacement trucks?
If the trucks are not warped, how do I fix this?
Thanks in advance.
ICMR
Happy Railroading.[swg][swg]
Are the wheels gauged correctly? Get a NMRA standards gauge and check. I had both my SD75I’s do the same thing your SD70 is doing and thats what the problem turned out to be. Very frustrating until I figured out what the problem was.
I read something before of this forum in regards to those sideframes being warped on the Genesis C trucks (apperantly this has been an ongoing problem?). I believe there were two options. One was to actually somehow “fix” the trucks, and the other was to contace Athearn and ask for replacements. I believe the latter was successful.
I have 4 Athearn Genesis SD70s, and 2 of them have warped trucks that cause the wheels to fall out and derail. Because of this, I’ll never purchase another Athearn Genesis product.
And no, parts are not available from Athearn for any of their Genesis or RTR products.
I have nearly 100 Athearn Blue Box kits of rolling stock and locomotives, but will stick with Accurail, Atlas, and other brands from now on. No more Athearn for me, thank you.
You’ve heard people complain about the noise Athearn locomotives made? Now that noise is Irv Athearn spinning in his grave when he sees what has happened to his beloved company.
Same here! I had 2 SD70Ms, a UP with the flag, and a SP unit. Loved the way the units looked, but I couldn’t run them, because the always derailed. And what good is a model train if you can’t run it? So I put them on eBay and got rid of them.
I am about to invest in quite a few Genesis F-7s. Do the B trucks have the same issues as the C trucks from Genesis? I would sure hate to pith away a lot of green on some garbage power.
I have checked them with the gauge but I will check them again and make sure they are correct. My wheels have not fell out yet.
ICMR
Happy Railroading.[swg][swg]
I havea set of Genesis F3s. I have had no issues with the trucks or any
tracking difficulty. From what I’ve read and heard, this is a problem only
with the 3-axle trucks on the modern EMD locos.
Does anyone know if Athearn is aware of a problem? Do they ever read this stuff?
I would be supprised if Athearn would just say tuff luck and not help.
Has anyone contacted them about the problem?
I have 2 SD70’s myself. I haven’t noticed any warpage (is that a word???) but mine had lots of sideplay in the wheels. Each wheel set could slide side to side over 1/8". It didn’t cause derailments per se but it made the loco track funny and it also rubbed off the rust color I painted the sides of the wheels. I think they did this to help the loco negotiate tight radius curves (mine run around 22" radius).
To fix this I cut a piece of round styrene tubing about 1/4" diameter and roughly 3/16" wide, cut thru it on one side so it was open (like a C) and snapped one of these over each axle, both sides, of the outer wheels of each truck. I didn’t do this on the center axles. The wheels still have some sideplay but it’s much less than before and the loco’s run and look better. The white plastic tubing I used isn’t visible either. Otherwise I’d have painted it flat black.
Hope this helps…[tup]
Problem is athrean RTR is made in good ole CHINA. You get what you pay for right? Not with athrean anymore,you get a very expensive piece of RTR @$#&. I might have bought the new RTR stuff,but after Horizon took over and I e-mailed them complaining of their high prices,no more athrean.I’m glad ,I didn’t buy anything after reading all these post about athreans RTR junk.
Yes
Surprise
Yes
In fairness though. It would have been different had I actually got the locomotive out of the box within the first three years that I owned it… But I don’t do that. I’m just now getting out stuff I purchased 10 years ago.[:(]
I guess I’ll think twice buying Athearn locos on e-bay. I guess you didn’t disclose what was wrong with the locos on e-bay.
Athearn’s truck problem seems confined to Genesis 6 wheel truck’s.
Most 6 wheel trucks don’t particularly like #4 turnout’s, and some manufacturer’s have purposely designed in lateral ‘slop’ (excessive play) to compensate for someone’s purchasing error’s. That, in turn, can produce problem’s of it’s own.
BEST answer is to use #6, or try more expensive prototypical-like #4’s. My Athearn SD40-2’s and Kato SD-45’s now go through Shinohara #4’s.
It was a common problem on many of the first SD70’s, , but some are OK… The replacement method is best or work with them on a piece of glass to find out which way they are warped. I know of several that would climb off large radius curves because of thie problem.
Heres the deal. It is the trucks. I have oredered about a dozen replacements for my SD70s direct from athearn and none of them work! As soon as I build up a little $$$ Im going to trade up to Katos. I agree with cacole. No more athearn Im gonna stick with P2k, BLI, Atlas and Kato. I have had my SD70s for about a year, I worked on them for about 4 months to get them running, but now that I have sound. They are just too noisy.
It is the trucks. I just checked them and they are warped.
Now the question is, How do I fix them without replacing them?
ICMR
Happy Railroading.[swg][swg]
I have 2 HO Athearn BNSF SD75M’s. I personaly don’t run them. I would rather keep them in a Display case rather than cell them. “HINT”. Allan.
Well, I’m going to say right now that if I were to spend $140.00 for one of these locomotives and it wouldn’t run properly I would MAKE IT RUN or else! Sounds like what you need to do is just sit down when your nerves are calm and just make a project out of fixing the locomotive. Anything is fixable if you take the time. A little ingenuity will allow a person to come up with a solution to the truck problem.
I had two SD70M’s from the first production run and I had the same tracking problem. When I took the truck apart I found that one of the wiring harnesses was bent causing the truck to sit funny. Once I bent the harness back to where it belonged the sd70M generally ran well. This could be a different problem from the deformed truck issue listed above.