Hi, I’m new to the forum…I have some Athearn BB locos i bought off of Ebay…I have 2 SD40-2, 1 GP38-2 and a GP35…I cleaned the wheels as best as possible, and lubed and greased the trucks and motors…they run a bit sluggish, and I’m planning on converting them to DCC with Digitrax DH123 decoders…I also have a Athearn SD40-2 shell that I want to power up…I was wondering the motors that are in my locos are the spline shaft drive…Can I put the newer Hex drive in these locos??..if so that would help tremendously as the Hex motors are easier to come by…thanks for any help…
Before I went to the trouble of re motoring, I’d try the regular Athearn tuneup tricks. Take the gear towers completely apart. Wash all the old grease out of them. Trim off any flash. Inspect each gear, tooth by tooth, for flash and wipe each tooth with a pipecleaner. The pipecleaner will pick up all tiny bits of loose black flash that is on the gears. Re assemble. The gears are made from a slippery engineering plastic that doesn’t really need lube. So go easy on gear lube.
Inspect the U-joints and remove any flash. Make sure the motor sits level in the chassis. If the rubbery motor pad isn’t installed right the motor will sit at an angle, forcing the U-joints to run at an angle and they don’t like that.
Hardwire juice from the trucks to the “top strap”. Hardware store 1/4" “faston” connector lugs will slip over the truck strap and allow you to later disassemble the trucks without the use of a soldering iron. You can solder to the top strap, it just takes determination, a large hot iron, polishing and flux. Take the top strap off t he locomotive before soldering to avoid undesirable melting of plastic.
Something I did recently with an Athearn F7. The frame, worm housing clips and gears are Athearn. The motor, trucks and wheels are Proto 1000. The motor could have just as easily been mounted standing on it’s side in a Geep or SD frame.
First thing I would do is test what the power draw on the motor’s. When you stall the motor and if you are 1.0 amps or lower the motors will be OK for DCC.
