I have a Bachmann GP 35 Frame that I would like to put an Athearn Shell on. Is it possible and modifications would be needed?
Any shell swap is possible, just depends on how much work you want to put into it.
I swapped a Rivarossi Krauss Maffei ML-4000 shell to an Athearn PA-1 frame.
The Krauss Maffei only had two axles powered in the rear truck and that was terrible.
The Athearn has all six axles powered.
Now it has all wheel drive and is a very nice runner. As well as 12 wheel power pickup, the Rivarossi frame only had 4 wheel power pickup, two wheels off the front truck and two wheels off the rear truck.
Mel
Modeling the early to mid 1950s SP in HO scale since 1951
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
Aging is not for wimps.
I had the opposite issue. The Bachmann Plus GP 35 shell is quite good. I concluded it couldn’t be done but I forget why. I think the Bachmann shell was too tight to fit the Athearn RTR frame which implies this might work the other way around.
I didn’t think much of the Bachmann frame frankly. Noisy and not a particularly good runner. I’m not impressed by Bachmann’s tower drives. The Athearn drive is much better quality, imho.
The Bachmann shell screws on. The Athearn shell clips on, I think. I’m more familiar with the cab diesels. The old BB Athearn GP35 does clip on:
https://tcsdcc.com/installation/ho-scale/1100
The RTR Athearn shell slips on, no screws or clips according to this:
https://tcsdcc.com/installation/ho-scale/1039
It is entitled RTR but the description is of the Genesis version. I suspect they use the same shell. I have an RTR DCC ready but I haven’t taken the shell off and the locomotive is at my other layout at the moment so I cannot check.
Unless the coupler screws hold the shell on which seems unlikely to me.
Assuming the Athearn shell actually fits you’ll need to devise a securing method.