A couple of weeks ago, while in my not so LHS… I was telling the owner about my Proto 2K E6 passenger loco that, evidently, had the cracked gear problem. Thunk, thunk, thunk down the track it goes. He handed me a set of 6 Athearn replacement wheel, axle with gear replacements and said that should fix’er up. I didn’t pay that much attention to them, buying other items also. Today I got around to putting them in and lo and behold what to my surprise they’re a different animal. The first photo is the original, supposedly defective part…
and below is the ‘replacement’
Not only are the axle ends very different but the wheel size is also… replacement on the left, original on the right. The replacement is a 40 inch wheel and I’m guessing the original is about 36?
I can take them back when I get up that way, which may be months but does anyone know the correct Athearn part number? I may have to order them direct from Athearn. This locomotive is about 7 years old, the best I can remember.
That is rather a surprise, I thought you would have had issues more w/ the gear. Early E’s and SD’s had 18:1 gearing, not sure if axle gears or the idlers are making the difference from the Athearn 14:1 replacement. But having different axle ends baffles me also. Not sure if Walther’s would be any help, especially on first run parts, but North West Shortline may have the parts needed. Never had a cracked gear in any of my SDs and E units. Maybe that cracked gear problem will now start to show in these as well.
The gears are the same as are the axle holes. If you are feeling adventurous you can pull the wheel/axle units off the old gears and do the same with the new ones. Now you can replace the original wheel/axle units on to the new gears and you are good to go.
Thanks for the replies, Bob and Joe. Joe I noticed the ‘if you feel adventurous’… [:D] Is this difficult? If not and I can’t mess things up too bad I may as well try it. While running the loco a few minutes ago I saw that the front wheels on the lead truck was derailing for some reason. I took it to my workbench but don’t see anything out of the ordinary. Nothing like having a compounding problem. It was only doing it when it came to a curve, no matter how slight the curve was. Now I’m wondering if the truck or an out of gauge wheel is causing the derailment and the bumping noise as that lead set of wheels bumps along the ties. Can a cracked gear have anything to do with the derailment? I’m guessing it doesn’t but I’ve seen stranger things. BTW, the hole in the journal box is round…
I bought a P2K E-6 A with unpowered B DCC/sound set at a local show last year. Front powered truck sounded noisy and having read threads here about early P2K gear cracking, assuming that might be the problem, I decided to order the Athearn gears (pack of 6) that I thought were right (basis parts people used on the 4-axle gear replacement). I replaced the gears (the half axles and wheels pull out and just force fit in the new gears). But it was still noisy so I checked my work and noticed the axle gears I ordered had one tooth more or less than the P2Ks.
I told NWSL what I had but they sent a reply that didn’t seem to offer a gear identical to the originals.
So I decided to call Walthers (I got the Athearn gears off Ebay). Their tech guy said the cracked gear problem was not with the 6-axle E engines. He said if I had a noisy truck that I should consider just replacing that. They had the front in stock (but not the back), about $20. The part is not listed on their site so you have to get the number and the availability from the tech folks.
I have it on hand and plan to remove the Athearn gears and use 3 of the original gears (don’t know how to choose the best ones) for the back and put the new truck on the front (no idea how it gets removed). Don’t know if this will work out or the problem is elsewhere in the front mechanics.
I’m no expert on these issues but wanted to share my experience and suggest maybe talk with a Walther tech guy.
Paul, like you I’m beginning to think this is a truck problem rather than cracked gears but I’m just not certain. I’ll give Walther’s a call and see if they have any more trucks for the front and maybe they’ll tell me how to do the replacement.
Not too difficult just takes a little time. Just make sure that the gear is centered between the wheels. It just takes a little care to do. You can check for cracked gears by holding on wheel of a pair and seeing if you can turn the other easily. The wheel should not be able to be turned. If so, you’ve got a cracked gear.
Just a little tip,If you do decide to put the axles into the gears yourself,make sure that they are not touching in the gear,instant short…I bought two identical Proto 2K’s GP-7’s,one ran perfect,the other would roll a bit and then short,that’s how I found out about the axle and gear issue,one axle was just barely touching in the gear…
Good observation. I missed that. It does look like there is some sort of crack or seam to the right of the center wheel set. The right end of the truck appears to be pitched up from the center.
That looks most definitely like the truck is cracked - you can see the cracks in the two side rails of the truck if you open the pic full size. An illusion/distortion from the camera lens would look like a melted bend, but I see two discnt crack lines. That would definitely cause issues, and even give the same sort of click click click sound that cracked gears would, as the gears failed to properly mesh.
It does look that way doesn’t it! So much that I had a closer look and took closer photos. It looks like the truck is made to pivot in that spot…, for some reason.
I had first noticed it when, on picking the loco up and looking at it the truck had a slight bow in it…
but I do see that the bottom gear cover is not sitting down flush as it should be.
It would almost have to, seeing as how the sideframes clip on fromt he outside and don;t bend like the truck frame. Been too long since I’ve seen one of the 6-axle Protos.
Does it pivot freely at that point? If it’s jammed up with a piece of flash or something, that would cause poor tracking if the truck can;t flex as designed. If it’s permanently bowed down like that, the center wheel is probably just catching its flange on the rail as it goes around corves or over turnouts, which makes it almost guaranteed to derail.
Randy, I’ll have to check it out really good to see if anything is wedged somewhere it shouldn’t be. The loco is pretty heavy and I’m guessing that, assuming nothing is wrong with the truck itself, the weight presses the wheels down flat. I’ll have to check that out also.
I’m thinking it’s not cracked gears though and something about that front truck isn’t right. I’ve been wrong before… [:S]
Jarrell, I have 2 SD7s from the very first run. I would have issues w/ derailments quite often on curves and turnouts. This was back when they were built by Lifelike. Called the tech dept, and found that there were problems w/ the “fingers” of the worm cover holding the truck far too tight and not allowing any side play at all. New covers to solve this were being fabricated, however Larry Grub told me a simple fix was to sand/ file the fingers just enough to allow some play. I sanded them and solved the problem. They still sent me 4 covers in the event that i may have removed too much material which would allow truck tracking but too much body roll/ yaw. It is possible that this could be a problem.
