I seem to find that removing locomotive shells is one of the most challenging parts – I’m always afraid I’m going to break something, and am not that confident with loco repair yet. I’ve got an intermittent headlight on my Athearn Rs3 and can’t figure out how to remove the shell to look at it.
I have looked at the diagram, and it shows stuff that is removable that I can’t seem to remove. Afraid to use too much force, and don’t want to remove something that will cause me grief.
If it’s the Athearn/MRC/Roundhouse RS3, just pinch the sides of the body in above the walkway and pull straight up. It should come right off. Mine have 4 tabs that hold the body on. 2 under the cab (one to each side) and 2 inline with the exhaust stack (one to each side).
I think you’re going to need to tell us what model you have for any of us to give to accurate info. Athearn recently released an RTR version of the RS3’s that are DCC ready. They come with pretty detailed instruction on how to remove the shell to install a decoder. In the past, Athearn/MRC/Roundhouse have also released an “older” version of the RS3’s with less detail than the current RTR version. I believe that this is what Jeffery is talking above.
I’ve got three of the Athearn RTR RS-3s. The shells mount differently than the old Roundhouse RS-3s. The Roundhouse RS-3s were never equipped with headlight bulbs.
To take the shell off an Athearn RS-3, remove the coupler boxes first, then remove the two screws underneath the cab. When you take the shell off, you’ll find that the headlight wires tether the shell to the power chassis. My guess is that one of the wires may be loose and has to be reattached to the circuit board. The wires are attached with little plastic clips that slide over the connector lugs on the circuit board.
Got the shell off! Thanks. (Didn’t see those two screws under the trucks).
Now, I ran it with the shell off. Place on the circuit board where the bad light wires come in is so hot, I can’t leave my finger on it. What does this mean?
Dont try to force it without removing those two screws that hold the walkways on (the part with the handrails). I did. The handrails didn’t survive. Oops.
If the board is hot on both ends, it is the heat dissipation from the diode bridge and the load resistor for the lamp circuit; the resisitor is that flat black item with 151 (150 ohms) written on top. If it is on end and the lamps were connected when you ran the locomotive, then the solid wires coming out of the lamp that are usually coated with enamel may be touching together causing a short circuit and overheating the resistor intermittently. The heat dissipation with diodes and a load resistor is however higher than you may be used to in a non-electronics equipped locomotive.