I have been playing trains since well birth and HO since 1973 and during my HS and college years finally had a few bux to move on from tyco and lifelike to athearn…for someone low rent, the move was like a rusty nova to a shiny buick park avenue.
My first NEW ABB (athearn blue box) was an SD40-2 in conrail. I always modeled what I interpreted as the motive power and rolling stock one might find outside Pitcairn yard, say 1976-1982.
Fast forward to adulthood, you finally have the $$ to be serious, but you lose time with work, kids, vacations and outdoor activities and since 2008 when I sold my layout and the market was ZERO, I put in a set of plastic tubs and wrapped all my stuff in cut up ‘chucks’ and stored it for literally well over a decade.
It was hot, it was cold, but being tubs it was never ‘buggy’. I found that age alone and temp swings cause the athearn SD axle gears to crack, the factory lube wicks out ever so slowly into the chucks, the smootchz on the wheels hardens on top of the sintered metal, and what lube DIDNT exit, turns to goo. (I have 3 locos right now, tested last night that will actually torque the body the trucks are resisting so much) and the motor mounts get hyper brittle and since most were held in by a slight amount of friction from pressing in a bulbous end, they fracture into a dozen pieces.
The snap on covers for coupler boxes get brittle and just fracture and the incy lights, which look stupid anyways, just give it up.
Back in the day, the pamphlet that came in each loco box had a parts listing you could mail order for a relative large amount of money - any part, pay postage and 6-8 weeks later get it.
This is the future, you cannot mail order anything and most athearn parts are long long gone, but since it is the future there is some sorcery known as 3 D printing and a lot of stuff is found again. some of the costs,well they are pretty high considering and the shipping oft doubles the bill but you can get the part.
Since the new stuff (DCC or not, $15 of gizmos cost THAT much?) is with a straight face $279 or more, you are seeing ABBs sell at train shows, old, unused, wrong box for 40-50-60 or higher each - multiples of what they cost new. almost like buying a used car.
So I have been going 1 by 1 resurrecting all my horses and selling off what I truly dont need or want and this is a long intro to what I have been doing to them…
- take it apart, I mean REALLY apart. take a pic or two and take apart on some sort of cookie sheet to catch the thrust washers you cannot see..
You want body off frame, motor out of frame, trucks out of frame, the famous electrical conductors off the motor and the trucks split in half
It sounds hard but it is not. I naturally understand machinery so it was a quick poke, but small electrical repair tools will be needed
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the electrical conductors for the motor will be like 90% of the time rusted. This is where the tiny wire wheel brush for a dremel comes into play at 4 million rpm to take the rust off, then use 400-800 emory to polish it to a shine. This is important to minimize ‘sparky spark’ (this is the term I use for what is essentially RFI interference where rapid loss and gain of contact from the motor being driven as a motor, or driving as a gen-set. It will harm DCC, it will harm LEDs and it will harm transistorized throttles.
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clean the motor contacts. 90%+ iso will remove oil that leaked back. find a 6-9v power supply and run the motor in your hand. they will re-carbon up so dont be dismayed, they are meant to do this. but you need the oils and stuff off
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re-lube the motor. get a dc power source that BARELY turns the motor, and then and only then install the proper oil as a partial tiny drop into the shaft support bearings - a fancy name for white plastic. sometimes bronze. never do this NON running, do it slowly running and the spinning of the shaft will draw the oil in (its called hydrodynamic lubrication and its ACTUALLY how your car gets oil to rods/mains.
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quiet the motor - electrically. the root of sparky spark is at the contacts, so on ABB where one contact is up on top and the other is down low and contacts the frame, go get a ‘MLCC’ (multi layer ceramic capacitor) in ‘.01 uF’ and 50v (mouser.com has them, order 10-25 at a time to get a serious discount on the price each.) You can slide the very thin leads UNDER the bent conductors on the brush end and bend it back around and hold with the tiniest bit of fine electrical solder. you can manhandle the cap into the void on that end and it WILL clear a frame pocket.
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clean the bejeezus out of the copper bottom conductor/contact that touches the frame AND take that wire wheel to the frame
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replace the motor mounts. I get em off ebay, you choose who, but expect 10 bux for a couple sets plus the screws. Online, the athearn train store has not had them in stock. Short frame locos like sw7/s1200 have a single pin, while the gps and sds etc take a double pin
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look at the BOTTOM of the athearn motor, see how it has sort of a frame thing that has tiny holes that line up with the pins? the motor mounts surround the bottom boss of the motor like a “c” (go ahead, bend your one hand into a C and place it over the side of your other hand, this is the hold position the motor mounts do). trim each new mount to fit in there FLAT such that the pins are perpendicular to the bottom plane of the motor. I guarantee that NONE of the 3d printed mounts has the screw hole in it completely or properly, down the centers of each pin, so take about a 1/16th drill bit and S-L-O-W-L-Y drill this hole all the way thru such that it the tip ENTERS the “C”, now when assembled the tip of the screw supplies will enter the holes in the frame thing. I have none ready to take a pic of now but next loco next week I will take a pic to show you. Those of you with more skills and cowboy urges can likely drill and tap these for those impossible 0-70 or 0-90 screws. You MUST drill these out, if you do not you will crack them trying to thread the screw.
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test fit this. The old ABB motor mounts had a slight bulbous head that did a pressure fit, the 3D printed ones do not and threading in a screw to expand them is dangerous to the point of destruction so…do this…does the pin stick below the drilled holes on the frame that accepts them? if so, dremel sand off a teeny amount, you want to SLIGHTLY depress the pin height inside the bottom of the frame, then use a tiny washer under the screw head and tighten it so it pulls the motor slightly INTO the frame. you do not have to make this solid, but you are forcing the bottom of the contacts into the frame. If you do NOT do this, the motor will likely wiggle loose and make no contact. You dont want that…
At this point the motor is in the frame and you feel like you just did a cap rebuild at the old defunct maint shop at cumberland Md.
Lets stop and talk about a standard that has existed for god knows how long for HO trains. If the train is going down the track and you are IN it in the engineer seat, then the rail under your seat is positive DC, the train goes forward. All makes, all models. If you pick up the loco like you were godzilla in the song, and placed it backwards aka left handed on the track, the train will STILL go in the ‘forward direction’ of travel with others, but the hood is now reversed - play with this concept on your own RR.
I mention this cuz I told you to take it ALL apart. the front and rear truck LOOK symmetrical, but they are not. note that they have the contact for the conductor metal strip on TOP of the engine, meaning the front and rear truck must be in 100% total agreement to polarity or else - dead short- fire- smoke - angry spouse. If you reassemble the loco with the trucks swapped, it will now run opposite to all your other locos, regardless of hood orientation. Good for Gomez Adams, bad for you.
so…
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when in the cab, the LEFT rail, under the fireman/brakeman (should your buddy be miniaturized and placed in there with you) is to be thought of as ‘negative’ or ground (non throttle reversed) and ABB locos get this from the left side wheels which collect the power to a metal tab that touches the bottom of the frame. dremel these as well. the contacts are more aggressive as the weight of the loco is always pressing them
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2 axle trucks and 3 axle trucks come apart differently. The tool needed to pop stuff off is a common screw driver you would use for an eyeglass screw and indeed one smaller than needed for a 2-56 screw (common size in HO world) Pop off the top bearing retainer for the worm - the brass ‘screw’ looking gear - and take care the now free bronze end bushing does not go flying. you can get them, but pound for pound is like buying saffron. Clean this gear with q tips and iso till it shines.
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now take off the top cap and bottom longgg cap and save, clean, dry. carefully pull the truck halves apart, one is a master side (with gear shafts and the other is a slave (with gear end supports) it all sounds proper and mechanical like we are in a fine Muncie transmission, but we aint, its all plastic. when the bottom cap came off, all the axles can come out, gather them up. The top cap (1 for 2 axle, 2 for 3 axle) is what holds the halves together. take out all these gears paying STRICT attention to who goes where and side to side orientation. I suspect, but have not proven that while they LOOK ambidextrous (you can flip them over with no ill effect) that they are not. better safe than sorry. Clean all the gears in 90+ iso and dry. Clean the sides with iso and dry.
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now lets put it back…take the fine choo choo lube OIL (aka Hob E Lub or your fav) and a tiny microdrop at the top of each gear support shaft and slide he gear back on while spinning. do this for all the gears and then place a micro drop and no more in the ‘support side’ ‘holes’ for each gear shaft. now place a micro micro drop on some teeth of each gear and no more, re join the halves and put any and all top ONLY clips back on. now onto the hard sad part:
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the axle gears…they tell me and I mostly believe it that ALL black ABB axle gears are cracked. I have not had a SW or Geep axle gear cracked YET, but my SD40 was 6 for 6, so I got 4 ‘deals’ of a bag of gears from a guy on ebay. it came to about 60 bux and I might need another order this size. the new gears are ‘delron’ - whatever that is - and you ream the gear out like you do for a sintered bushing for a king pin style automotive things (yeah I keep using auto terms but one of my lifelong side bizs was restoring stuff and rebuilding engines are such…so when the concepts cross…) The gears I got need reamed and the BEST ream was a 3/32nd bit for a reasonable fit, #42 is the ACTUAL drill size for a hard press in which a) you stress the plastic a bit and b) will need to build a pressing tool. I used a 20v lithium cordless battery drill with crawl speed and drilled the gear one pass, slowly and did not in and out to clearance it - but first, I used a dremel conical grinder to make perhaps 1/2 MM pilot path so the bit wont walk. I did the HOLDING it in my hand and doing my best to be perpendicular. if you have a hobbyist drill press you are way ahead of me. if you MUST hold the gear, its 12 teeth so get a 12pt box end wrench (IIRC 8mm) and put in a layer of electrical tape to close it up. When you pull apart the old axle gears, take care to NOT drop the bronze square bushing off the end!! When you press them together, make the new assembly have axle shaft ‘daylight’ EQUALLY on both sides AND use a gauge to get the span OR use good track. get a 1 inch straight of atlas snap, there should be play so the wheelset can choggle between rails, but never leaving more than half a wheel of space. note: if your prized SD or C Uboat starts throwing the lead axle off an 18 inch curve, press them in like .005 MORE. the RP25 contours are easier to jump if the torque needed to move the axles in the ‘frame’ to take the curve, exceeds the pressure for the wheel to climb the rail. At any rate, place the new wheel sets in the truck with a micro drop of oil on 2 teeth of the gear. once all 3 are in, do NOT run them by hand!!! EVER. put on the bottom frame cover of the truck, turn it wheels down, place on your layout and push it back and forth, it will work in the oil and after that does, it should travel somewhat with a gentle push. not as far as a boxcar, but to show nothing is bound. Why never run the wheels by hand, when in your hand? On the ABB, the weight of the train keeps the axles ‘up into’ the truck and engage the idler gears fully. if they are able to move, 1 or more of the axles can partially or fully disengage from the idlers in the truck and CAN knock off or damage teeth. you do not want to re-hob these.
15 1/2) the pressing tool. Make one urself. take a small, lousy C clamp of like 3 inches. Take a bench top grinding wheel, use gloves and slowly compress the C clamp onto the running wheel SIDES, taking care to be perpendicular to the spinning wheel and gentle pressure only with a firm hold always unless you want it flung across he garage or into your forehead. dont grind it all down, leave the center of the C clamp pads depressed and indeed, dremel out that center pocked a bit more to accept the axle ends without touching (damaging)
- re-install the worm and shim it. there is a term that scares people but its easy..the bronze or brass worm eats on a plastic worm gear - the biggest one at the top of the trucks ‘tower’. Consider if you will, taking your v8 engine and adding a roller cam which is no longer softer iron but now hardened steel. yanno how in the auto motor you have to ditch the stock distributor gear for steel cuz the cam will now eat it to nothing causing a problem here or there? same here…take a tube of the hob e lube ‘moly grease’ and put a dollop on the worm and work it into the entire screw. then place the bearings in the block and check for endplay movement or thrust. ABBs are FAMOUS for an audible clunk when reversing OR hitting bad track and the motor flywheels. This WILL eat the top worm driven gear down to nubs. Not as fast as a tyco ‘powertorque’ truck failure, but quick. These tiny washers you get from the same place that has the square bronze bushing have them in .005 and .010. buy some of each but my experience is 99% they need .005. There must be SOME freeplay, you dont want it to bind. they are EXPENSIVE. so dont lose any. There are SS, nylon and fiber…replace the worm cap, now the truck will not free wheel, but you can place it back into the frame and run the motor with it upside down, not fast, slow to medium - to keep the axle gears meshed by gravity and to distribute lube.
and there you have it, the electrical and mechanical rebuild of an ABB. My next step is my take on directonal LED lghting…another topic, another day…
