For alittle over three hours last night my friend and I managed to coax the shell off the fram, remove the trucks and twist them pwe the instructions fri=om Athearn. What a job! This is a loc that is definitely not made with much thought given to access for repairs/modifications.
We were able to complete the disassembly and reassembly without breaking anything but did some monor damage along the way. Some of the wires leading from the decoder to the cab/nose were glued to the uderside of the shell roof. In order to get enough separation to remove the trucks we had to pull the wires away from the roof and in the process left 3/4" ir so of the wire insulation on the roof exposing the copper wires. And one of the wires pulled out of its plastic retainer clip. Shrink tubing and a little soldering fixed those oooops’.
We finally got the trucks removed and twisted them per the Athearn instructions, checkin their flatness on a small piece of glass. Initially this was very successful although we had to twist them much harder that I would have imagined. Nerve wracking to think that the whole thing might snap in your fingers!
Once we had the trucks level, we reassembled everything. This was faster and less stressful than the disassembly but still a challenging task, especially trying to keep track of the sanding tubes so they didn’t wind up somewhere inside the chassis. None of them broke off or disappeared but they will need some touch up paint.
That’s the good news. But…ultimately the fix was no successful. The trucks sit better than they did but they apparently have some memory of their former warped life (perhaps there is a life lesson here). By the time we got it back together and running on the track, some of the warping had returned. They ride better than previously but still derail too often at turnouts.
It is a real shame. The engine runs very smoothly, the sound is good and
You can adjust the main volume with any 28 function throttle.
If you want to spend about $180 for the MTH hand-held commander, and the Track Interface unit, it will allow you to access the individual sound volumes, turn on and off individual sounds and will eventually be able to make programming changes via the track interface unit and your computer.
I bought one a few years back and its been a good tool because I update so many models for people. But it a lot of money to adjust sounds- I don’t recommend buying it for what you want to do…if you’re going to go MTH, for your needs, Id get a DCC ready one and have the decoder added.
I all ready have one pain in the caboose Engine to take a part, a BLI GE AC 6000. It is on the RIP track now because it sucked up a rail spike into the speakers. Must be something about the shape of the engines far as it being hard to take the shell off.
I just thought I’d throw my $.02 worth in.I have both mth and athearn aces.Both sound both BNSF.The mth doesn’t have correctly painted underframes.It is molded grey not painted silver like it should be. The number on the cab isn’t quite right and it lacks the detail of the athearn.It does run and pull well but the their dcs system is hard to figure out on dcc.
The athearn definitely has sound issues(too quiet).I’m working on the proposed fix at the moment.The detail is quite good and mine doesn’t have any glue on it.One thing to keep in mind is that the more detail the harder it is to work on so there is a trade off.The shell comes off easier than the mth IMHO but yes care must be taken and some touch up of the sander lines will be expected.So far mine runs well but does not have the pull power of the mth but also IMHO neither pulls like it should considering the prototype.The athearn also has awesome detail and all the colors/printing are more correct than the mth.
I guess in my opinion athearn and mth both have things to work on and for that kind of money both should be right out of the box.I think that if athearn is willing to fix problems on units already purchased than it’s a toss up.In order to fix the problems I encountered (and am picky about) the athearn is an easier fix.Disassembling the whole loco to paint the underframe is no small task and the dcs deal isn’t favorable.Buy the mth without sound and add it plus other road names are more correct than the BNSF versions.Buy the athearn and possibly deal with some sound/running issues.
Also just received intermountain es44ac’s BNSF.Ran them yesterday for a few laps.Great runners so far and the non sound unit comes decoder equipped and it matches the sound unit in speed out of the box.They look great but the speed steps and sound needs a little tweaking as the horn sound is too quiet out of the box but that’s easy to deal with.Detail is really good and I’m still figuring out all of the functions.Headlights,ditchlights and numberbo