I hauled out some old flea market purchases and among them found an old Athearn diesel with the original motor and dual flywheels. I am following the Athearn tune up article which appeared on line several years ago (my MS Word copy) and as I gotntomthe point where I “gently” remove the motor and flywheel assembly itself from the chassis, I found that the plastic mounts- there are two- were fried to such an extent that they cracked as I got the motor out. I looked on the original exploded assembly diagram, but there is no reference to any part number for these mounts, nor any illustration of them as they fit into the chassis. The two round base parts are also fried yellow and I will have to cut them out. The motor and wheel/gear assemblies will be cleaned and relubed, then reassembled- no new motor switch out is planned. I saw that our moderator, Jeff W. did a remotor of an old Athearn BB diesel and used some clear silicone(?) to mount his new motor, based on his posting last summer (July 2012). Are the originals still available, or should I use some similar remounting method as Jeff did? Cedarwoodron
Just go to the Athearn web site and look for ‘motor mount’ in the parts area:
http://www.athearn.com/Products/Default.aspx?ProdID=ATH84020
You can order direct from Athearn, or maybe you have a LHS that stocks the parts…
Jim
Athearn now uses plastic mounts that are held in place with screws. They replace perfectly the old press-in mounts. The model you refer to that I did I believe I used hot glue. On some remotor jobs I use motor types other than what was designed to go there.
Regrettably, these must predate the ones both of you, Jim B. and Jeff W. referenced, as each mount has only one round plug at the base. There are only two holes in the chassis, centered under each mount. Cedarwoodron
Aha! Then this is what you want!
Now that I know what to look for, found a 6 piece package with free shipping . To Jim: as a former Minneapolitan, sorry about this winter! To Jeff: as a current Gulf resident in Tampa, nice weather we’re having this winter! To both of you: thanks for your quick responses and my best for the new year! One final question- what may have caused the fried nature of these mounts? Storage in high heat ( nothing else on the motor or wheel assembles looks bad, though) or heat resulting from the motor operation itself? Cedarwoodron
Most likely both. I have some Athearn locos from the 70’s that were in great shape with the exception of the motor mounts which were cracked and literally falling apart. It was my opinion that heat and age had taken a toll on them. The old black ring magnet motors do put off quiet a bit of heat after they’ve been running a while. Most of these get replaced in DCC conversions because they draw too much power for the average DCC decoder.