Depends on which run of the GP7’s you have. All of mine are of the 8 pin variety.
They still don’t fit the board replacement form factor decoders. Several manufacturers made special drop in decoders for those versions. But all the wires are right there in front of you, they are easy hard wire installs with a decoder such as the TCS T1. T1-LED and you can pull those horrid light bulbs and connect LEDs, nothing else needed, as the T1-LED already has the resistors for the LEDs included.
Then there’s the SD7/9, I’m sure they’ve done more runs of those, but the one I installed a decoder in did have room for a board replacement decoder, but no mouting pegs for it like found in the intended recipients from Atlas and Athearn. The factory board was the one with 8 holes for the wires, with several “Cut here for DCC” locations marked with X’s. That too got a hard wired decoder because the factory board made no sense trying to follow the connections from the 8 decoder leads to the lights, motor, and track once the traces were cut. Again, since everything runs to the factory board - track pickups, motor wires, lights - it’s extremely easy to hard wire a decoder.
–Randy
It does have 8 pin harness, but everything seems to work fine after it was cleaned. I was just excited (like a kid in a candy store) to buy a new CPR GP9 to add to my collection and that i never thought i would be getting any issues. Anyways, I ordered 2 set of gears from walthers. Fairly cheap price but unfortunately it cost more to ship it…oh well. Just got to play the patient game now. Sure is frustrating[:S]
I got a lot of helpfull tips from this forum! again much apprecited. Do all new locomotives come with cracked gears or is it just a certian models???
There was a series of P2K locos over a specific time period that are more suceptible than others. A few other brands have occasionally shown up with cracking issues but it’s not all that common except those certain P2K models - where if they aren’t cracked yet, they will be.
I don’t order anything directly from Walthers - I don;t think they want to sell anything direct, really, which is why their shipping is absolutely ridiculous. Athearn #60024 gears work for the P2K, and you can get them pretty cheap. I just repalced all mine as I put decoders in them, only one actually had cracked gears, but rather than wait and have to take the same loco apart again, I just did them all at once.
–Randy
Randy, do you have a technique other than a hand held push to get these gears to fir the axel? I cannot the hand of it.
No, just push and twist. You DO need an NMRA gauge to set the proper wheel gauge.
–Randy
Randy: okay, I’ll keep trying.